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A gun!
“Ivan!”
Her scream rang through the space, followed by a shot going off and the disharmonious notes of the orchestra as their melody died.
Chapter 8
Pandemonium broke out around Ivan. He registered two things at once. A shot had been fired, and a scream from the sweetest voice in the world had warned him a second before. If not for that warning, he would’ve been dead. His gift took over, wrapping everything in light. Through the haze, he made out the distorted vertebrae of a hunchback before the man disappeared behind the curtain. Security scrambled onto the stage. He lifted his gaze to where the voice had come from. Even before he recognized the unmistakable spectrum of color, he knew who stood on the spotlight bridge. Arms grabbed him and a pair of hands pushed his head down as Donald and Ben, surrounded by a team from the theater, escorted him off the stage.
“Ben,” he shouted as they hurried to the back, “Alice is on the bridge. Get her.”
The obstinate bastard shook his head. “Kate pays me to protect you.”
“Do as I say if you want a job, tomorrow.”
Ben mumbled an objection but turned for the bridge.
Less than a minute later, he was shoved into a small resting room underground and secured behind a metal door. Johnny and Kate arrived seconds later.
“Good God.” Johnny dragged a hand through his hair. “I assure you this has never happened in our theater.”
“Don’t sweat.” Kate said, lighting a cigarette with shaky fingers. “We’re not going to sue you.”
Johnny visibly relaxed. “The police are on their way. We’ve locked down the building until everyone has been searched and questioned.”
Ivan jerked off his jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa. “Where’s Alice? She was on the bridge.”
“I know,” Johnny said. “I met Ben on the way. They’ll be fine. We’ve got our men on the stage.”
“We’ve got to get Ivan out,” Kate said.
“Do you mind not smoking?” Ivan motioned at the windowless room.
She stubbed out the cigarette in the trashcan and turned to Johnny. “Do you have a back exit that’s guarded?”
“This is the safest place for him, right now. The magnetic doors have been locked down via central control. Anyway, he can’t leave until the police have questioned him.”
The door clicked open, and Alice entered with Ben on her heels. Her cheeks were pale, making the amber of her eyes appear like liquid fire.
She addressed Johnny. “I’ve checked with security. The media is safe. We have to go back and issue a statement.” Her gaze found Ivan. “What do I tell them?”
Ivan cupped her face and searched her eyes. “You all right?”
She gave a shaky nod. “You?”
“If you hadn’t screamed, I would’ve taken a bullet. What the hell were you doing on the bridge?”
She sidestepped him. “We don’t have time. News of the attack is being sent to the television stations as we speak. One of the journalists recorded the whole thing on his phone.”
“Have you received any hate mail, lately?” Johnny asked. “Threats?” He turned to Kate. “Fanatic fan messages?”
Kate snorted. “He always gets fanatic fan messages.”
“No new threats have been made,” Ivan said. “The last time was during the world tour.” He didn’t elaborate because he had a nasty suspicion the attacks had something to do with Boris’s visit, and that wasn’t something he could share.
Johnny narrowed his eyes. “You’re being evasive. I hope you’re not hiding anything, because if you consciously put my theater—”
“What we should be asking is if we carry on with the concert.” Alice moved to the urn that always stood ready and poured tea into a Styrofoam cup. She added three spoons of sugar and handed it to Johnny.
“Yes,” Kate said quickly. “We’re not giving the son of a bitch the satisfaction of canceling.”
“We’ll have to jack up our security,” Johnny said. “I hope you realize how bad this looks for the image of the theater.”
“It’s not his fault.” Alice laid a hand on Johnny’s arm. “He didn’t ask for the attack.”
Johnny pointed a finger at Ivan, causing tea to slosh over his jacket sleeve. “He brought the trouble here.”
“We don’t know anything for a fact. Let’s just kill this fire to start with.” Alice dabbed the stain on Johnny’s sleeve with a napkin and ushered him to the door. “We have to get you cleaned up before you address the media. The best way to deal with this is honesty. We’ll say we have no idea how a gun was smuggled in, but we’ll find out, and we’re stepping up our security.”
“People are going to demand refunds,” Johnny whined. “The shows will run empty.”
“We can turn it into positive publicity,” Alice said. “We’ll run an article on how efficiently we dealt with the situation and how advanced our security systems are. The central control magnetic doors are new. We can run a feature on that and issue a statement that the doors will be locked down from now on.”
