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I could almost hear his frown in his pause. “Business as usual around here. We got back from the shooting range a couple of hours ago—your skaters didn’t embarrass me too much. Why, what’s going on?”
“Oh, maybe I’m just being paranoid. My mom—”
A sudden screech of a siren blared through the speaker, making me flinch. “What the hell is that?”
Rafael raised his voice to talk over the pulsing wail, sounding annoyed. “I think that’s the building’s fire alarm. They didn’t warn us about a drill. Someone must have done something stupid in the halls.”
A deeper chill pierced through my gut. I couldn’t have said exactly what the problem was, but I had a bad feeling about all of this. “You should get out of the building just in case. And… be careful. I’m heading straight over—I’ll get there soon.”
The second the call ended, I pressed my foot to the gas pedal. Weaving through the other cars, I roared along the freeway as fast as I dared.
The loft was on the edge of the city, closer than the Deadly Rose mansion. I’d already covered a lot of the distance back to Austin. If all went well, I could cut the rest of the journey down to no more than fifteen minutes.
I just had to hope that didn’t make me fifteen minutes too late.
I tore down the exit ramp and through the streets to the loft, only slowing when the building came into view up ahead. A small throng of residents milled on the sidewalk outside and across the road.
With a frantic flick of my eyes, I spotted all four of my men in a cluster near the parking lot. I pulled over to the curb, sprang out, and dashed over to them.
No smoke seeped from the building’s windows. No flames danced behind the glass. My suspicions deepened with every thud of my heart.
Niko saw me first and welcomed me into their group with a sling of his arm around my waist.
Rafael swiveled on his crutches to face me. “What’s going on, Lou? I didn’t think you were coming over today.”
I grimaced, my stomach churning with apprehension. “I don’t think the fire alarm was a random coincidence. My mom’s up to something. We need to check the loft.”
He started to straighten up as much as he could with his leg in the cast, but I grasped his arm. “No. You’ve got to stay down here with the crowd. You know you won’t be able to move fast—but you can keep an eye out and give us a heads up if anything changes down here.”
And he’d be safer. I didn’t want Rafael getting even more hurt than he already was. But if I saidthat, I’d wound his pride, and who knew what idiotic things he’d do.
My bodyguard’s stance tensed, but he nodded in acceptance. I tugged the other guys around to the building’s back entrance.
When I pushed open the door, the air inside smelled stale but not the slightest bit smoky. My certainty that this was some kind of a trick only grew.
“What do you think we’re dealing with?” Quentin asked as we clambered up the stairs.
I let out my breath in a nervous rush. “I’m not sure. But be prepared for a fight.”
They all accepted that order without hesitation or surprise. It’d have pained me more to see them adjusting to the craziness of my life so easily if it hadn’t seemed so vital to their survival.
I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and curled my fingers around the Glock that Rafael had insisted I buy from Dolores. If I had my way, I’d handle most of whatever fight we encountered.
We burst from the stairwell near the loft’s door. The guys stuck close to me as we hurried down the hall.
Jasper hissed through his teeth. “The door’s open.”
It was—just an inch ajar. So slight we could almost have thought the guys must have simply failed to secure it properly in their rush to evacuate, but I knew Rafael would never have been that careless.
My whole body tensed. I took the lead, striding up to the door, girding myself, and then shoving inside with my gun held in front of me.
In the main room, three men in dark sweatsuits spun around. One held a knife that he’d been digging into the sofa cushions. Another looked like he’d been ransacking the kitchen cabinets, with cereal, dry pasta, and crackers strewn across the counters from their opened boxes. The third had been prying at a floorboard.
I recognized two of those faces. I’d seen them around the Deadly Rose mansion.
These were Mom’s men. She’d sent them to search the loft… for evidence I might have stashed here, presumably, or a clue about how to get access to all the digital proof I’d stored in the cloud.
One of the men gave a shout. Another’s hand twitched toward his hip where I could see the bulge of a pistol.
