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The terrorists shouted orders in Spanish that echoed off the walls. Women cried; men stood frozen in fear. As Lauren quieted in his arms, Finn glanced toward the darkened hallway they’d just come from. It was ten feet away, the distance littered with downed tables and chai But there was no exit. The hallway ended with bathrooms. The narrow stairs went only up, not down. He peered over the table blocking their view of the horror now strewn across the dance floor. The leader stood over Javier’s lifeless body, muttering something in Spanish. Finn might not be able to understand the words, but he knew the intent.
Shit. This was no random shooting. That guy knew Santiago. Finn would bet his left arm on it.
“Lauren Kauffman!” The leader’s voice rang out strong and heavily accented. He turned away from Santiago and looked toward the crowd. “Which one of you bitches is Lauren Kauffman?”
Every one of Finn’s muscles went tight and rigid. In his arms, Lauren stilled and sucked in a breath.
“Don’t you fucking answer,” he whispered in her ear.
She swallowed hard, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Lauren Kauffman,” the leader said again, his shoes clicking across the floor as he advanced on a group of women huddled near the far wall. “We have business, you and I. Come out and no one else shall be hurt.”
Lauren’s fear-filled eyes shot to Finn’s. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he was sure if Lauren showed herself, she’d wind up just like Santiago, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.
Finn saw only one way out of this.
“Are you hit?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“Can you crawl?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Go slow, on your belly, behind those tables over there.” He pointed toward the hallway. “It’s dark enough to cover you. Can you do that?”
She looked, nodded again. He had to give her points. She wasn’t hysterical like a lot of the women around them. She was scared, but she didn’t look ready to lose it. At least not yet.
“Las luces, rapido.”
Finn knew just enough Spanish to know they were about to lose their one shot to make it out of here alive. He let go of Lauren, pushed her forward. “They’re about to turn the lights on. Hurry. I’ll cover you.”
She flipped over onto her stomach and didn’t look back before belly crawling toward the first table, three feet away.
There was trust there. Regardless of how pissed she’d been a few minutes before, she trusted him to keep her safe.
Finn’s anxiety ratcheted up as she inched away from him. From his hiding space behind the table, he trained his gun on the closest thug, the man’s profile outlined by the throbbing lights. Lucky for the idiot, he didn’t turn their way, didn’t even notice Lauren crawl just feet to his right and disappear behind another table.
Relief rushed back, hard and fast. Finn shifted to his stomach and followed her path. Together they made their way to the hall.
When he reached the darkened threshold, Lauren was waiting for him in the shadows. He pulled himself to his feet and stepped around the corner into the stairwell just as the lights in the club flipped on behind them.
“Go,” he whispered, pushing her up the stairs. “Fast.”
Lauren’s face was famous. In the light it wouldn’t take the thugs long to figure out she’d escaped. As she gripped the banister with one hand and skipped stairs in those sky-high heels, Finn pressed one hand at the small of her back, both to steady and urge her on.
A heavy metal door blocked their exit. Finn brushed past Lauren, pushed against the waist-high bar with his hip. The door stuck. He pushed again, his anxiety amping up. With a long groan, the door finally gave and he stumbled out on the roof of the club, pulling Lauren with him.
The lights of the hotel district twinkled far below the Las Brisas hillside. To the right, the blackness that was Acapulco Bay was littered here and there with ship lights. Finn dragged Lauren to the edge of the roof and looked down. At least three stories below and another twenty vertical feet, cars whizzed by on the busy street. Even if they could get down there, chances of being seen were pretty good, and he bet the terrorists had the front of the club covered. That left the back of the building and the hillside jungle behind. He turned and looked over the roof. Triangular glass skylights, vents and what appeared to be an air-conditioning unit filled the flat space.
Lauren peered over the edge. “How are we going to get down?”
One hand wrapped around hers, the other holding his gun, Finn looked right and left. “I don’t know.” He spotted a curved metal arch on the opposite side. “Look. That could be a ladder.”
Lauren turned to look just as voices echoed in the stairwell behind them.
“Shit. Go!” Finn pushed Lauren toward what he hoped was indeed a ladder. Because if it wasn’t, they were fucked. And definitely not in the way he’d been thinking of earlier.
