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All the people Luciano and the syndicate would hurt if Dean failed to survive. If he could just get to his car and away from Harlow. If he could just live long enough to attest to all the evil he’d recorded and witnessed over the years…
He lunged for his car and pried the door open, throwing himself into the front seat and then gunning the engine. He jammed the gearstick into reverse, his front door still open and now forgotten.
Even as he roared out of his driveway and his house faded around a corner, even as he escaped Andre alive, one glance through his rearview mirror revealed a white sedan trailing a block behind.
This ordeal was far from over.
“Gordon?”
Sarah turned toward the kitchen and glanced through the pass to see who had entered the back door. Gordon had clocked-off ages ago, but maybe he’d come back. Maybe he or one of her other staff had returned to grab something they’d left behind. Maybe the cold nerves rippling under her skin and bringing a weakness to her muscles was all for nothing.
And still, I have a bad feeling about this…
She paused in her tracks and listened. Nothing. Even though she’d definitely heard the door click shut, followed by footsteps, not all that long ago. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Time to stop overthinking this.
A set of swinging doors separated the patron area from the kitchen, and she strode through, determined to get on with closing the bar. While the back door sat slightly ajar, no one else was there. Maybe her panicked mind had imagined the footsteps. Recent events meant she wasn’t thinking straight, so maybe someone simply hadn’t shut the back door properly, and the wind had blown it open.
She crossed the kitchen, grumbling to herself to get a grip, only to pause at the night air blowing through the door. An eerie chill crept over her skin, followed by an inexplicable warmth, like someone stood beside her, so close their body heat touched her skin.
Wait. Didn’t I check the door not ten minutes ago?
She froze. She could turn—confirm that this feeling was once again her mind playing tricks on her—but what if she was wrong? She trekked her gaze up the wall to her left, to the change in light and a diffused shadow looming over her shoulder. Holy shit. Run!
She gasped and stumbled forward, pushing the door wide. Not fast enough.
An arm latched around her shoulders and lifted her off the floor, but she swung at the space behind her head, her knuckles connecting with the edge of someone’s jaw.
“Fuck!”
For a moment, she thought maybe Dean had come for her, but the male voice didn’t belong to him, and this guy smelled of cigarettes. Dean didn’t smoke. An instant pain cut into her knuckles, but she didn’t have time to ponder the ache.
Another hard arm hooked around her waist. She was dragged backwards and wild screams tore from her throat, tears streaming down her cheeks as she caved to her panic.
The crushing grip around her body established an intent to hurt her, so she swatted out toward the stocked shelves, trying to gain purchase on something—anything. Her hands connected with cans and glass bottles, many of which crashed and shattered on the brown tile floor until she ran out of shelves altogether.
An almighty shove came at her back, and she found herself tumbling through the open freezer room doors, her hands and knees hitting the cold, hard floor before she scuttled forward, but not in time to stop the heavy metal doors from slamming shut, locking her in.
