Page 130 of Hard Rain

“Son of a bitch!”

He ripped the earpiece from his ear and threw it down the hallway.

There would be consequences.

He might even get suspended or fired.

Fuck all that.

Once he found Whip, they could sort all that out.

Together.

Screaming erupted from the ballroom. Through the doors he’d just kicked open, a crowd came running.

From fuck knows what.

SWAT.

There was your criminals.

Holy fuck. What had they stumbled into?

“Police! Stop where you are.” The orders came fast and hard.

Axel didn’t stop. Kicking in another door, he found himself in a foyer.

People pushed past him, running to the far end and downward.

He moved with them.

Someone killed the lights.

Fuck.

Complete darkness hit. He gripped the railing. The noise was deafening, bodies jostled past him.

“Get a fucking grip, Bain,” he muttered.

His panic ran deep, and if he didn’t get a handle on it, then he was going to do something stupid.

And stupid wouldn’t find Whip.

The people shoved from behind. They weren’t going to move him faster than he wanted to move. He slowly took the stairs to the bottom and into a hallway filled with people trying to find a way out.

“This way!” a man shouted, throwing open a door. A light beyond flared and most of the crowd followed.

Axel went the other way.

Back into the darkness.

A few of the others still hugged the shadows. Beyond the light in the other room.

Perhaps Charleston was one of them.

Axel settled against the wall and took in the figures moving, now silently except for the occasional scrape of a shoe.

The cut of shoulders, the tip of a head. He’d know the minute the fucker appeared.