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“Come on, Lake. We’ve got a meeting with Robert to get to.” He motioned toward the door with the gun before aiming it back at me.
There was an inner war fighting to stay in control when my mind wanted to completely disconnect from the confusing scene before me. I’d hated Dominic since the day he’d been introduced to me just after my mother’s death. He’d been rude, arrogant, and acted like I was an annoying little girl. When I got older, he made snide comments about me under his breath and played the perfect lapdog to my father. Every emotion I had toward this man had been negative and full of anger, but I had never feared him until this very moment.
“You can walk out of here now on your own or I can carry you out and make you watch as I slit Scout’s fucking throat.” The calmness with which he spoke, let me know that he would follow through on this promise, but he was an idiot if he thought I’d go without a fight. I’d be dead if I went with him.
Shuffling toward the door, I tried to scope out something to use as a weapon, cursing Decker for enjoying the minimalist style. The only thing within reach was the small bowl used for keys and other things that got dropped by the door. I sidestepped Evan’s leg and pretended to trip, stumbling forward just enough to grab the thick glass bowl that was only slightly larger than my hand. Spinning quickly I raised the bowl and slammed it into the side of Dominic’s head.
Well that was the plan, anyway. As the bowl came down toward the side of his skull, he dodged just enough to escape direct contact. Instead, the bowl shattered against his hand holding the gun and he dropped it with a loud curse. It wasn’t ideal, but it was time. I sprinted through the open door and down the hall toward the elevator, and the door to the stairs. I didn’t have time to wait for the elevator, but if I could get down to the business levels, someone could help.
I was reaching for the push bar to the stairwell when something massive tackled me from behind, sending me to the ground faster than I could prepare for. Unable to use my outstretched arms to break my fall, the hard ground met my chin with bone jarring force. The world around me grew dark before I could even register the pain.
CHAPTER 31
DECKER
Iwas wide awake, eyes trained on the shadows cast from the window across the ceiling of a hotel room, I ached to leave. Since the moment we’d arrived, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my world was in danger of crumbling if I wasn’t near Lake. I’d even contemplated bringing her with Cabot and I a few times before sanity won out and remembered she had a large red bullseye on her back. If there was one place she was safe, it was the Remington building.
I turned my head with a sigh and noticed it was just past 10pm. I wasn’t exactly one to turn in early, but I’d been so agitated with having to wait for the damn autopsy that Cabot had wrestled me into the room and told me to sleep off my attitude. Well, there had been far more cursing and threats, but that had been the gist of it. For two hours I’d attempted to calm the dread snaking through my veins, warning me the worst was moments away.
I was so lost in my silent pity party that I jumped at the sound of my phone ringing on the nightstand. Quickly, I snatched it up, frowning at Avery’s name on the screen. She was the one person in my life who refused voice calls as much as possible and complained that she hated the call when a text would suffice. That creeping dread spread through my chest as I connected the call. Before I could even speak, I was assaulted with chaos.
“Avery?” I barked, far too loudly. But fuck, it sounded like she was in the middle of a train station and I distinctly heard the sounds of people calling out medical number and instructions. My feet were on the floor before I could even think to tell them to move and I was pounding on the wall that connected Cabot’s room to mine.
“Decker! Jesus!” Avery was sobbing into the phone and the world seemed to stop completely. My sister did not cry. She made jokes that she had her fucking tear ducts removed. Now I could hear the gut wrenching sobs falling from her lips as she tried to compose herself enough to speak.
“He took her. He shot Jack and Evan and took Lake!” Her words may have been broken up by more sobs, but they were clear enough to make the world around me tunnel.
I didn’t even know I was falling until Cabot was suddenly there, holding me up and demanding answers. At least I thought he was demanding answers, I couldn’t hear a single thing he was saying as the blood rushing in my ears was deafening. But there was a voice that broke through the rushing and it was my sister, trying to get my attention through the phone.
“Decker!” she was screaming.
I raised the phone to switch to speaker, filling the dark room around us with the sounds of my world falling apart. I listened as Cabot took over the conversation, demanding to know exactly what happened.
“I was asleep in my room and I heard Lake and the guys talking, but I figured I’d give her space since she was so out of it before; she was like a zombie and I was hoping-”
“Avery!” Cabot barked, and I fought the urge to slam my fist into his face for taking that tone with her. “Stay on subject, baby girl.” He continued when she broke off her rambling.
“Sorry,” she sniffled. “There was talking and then a gunshot. I barely got the door cracked to hear.” I was going to have to discuss appropriate reactions to gunfire to her. She should have been hiding, not getting closer to the fucking noise. “This guy said something about a meeting with her father and slitting a boy scout’s throat.”
“A boy scout?” Cabot asked. “Did he say boy scout or Scout?”
“I don’t fucking know, Aiden! I was a little busy being traumatized by an armed gunman in my brother’s home which was supposed to be as secure as Fort fucking Knox!” She took a breath and continued. “There was the sound of something breaking then I heard them both go out the front.” She sniffled. “I got out there to see Jack shot and Evan,” She let out a wail that took the last of the breath from my lungs.
“Where are you now?” Cabot asked, voice strangely calm in the face of my entire world crumbling.
“Outside the apartment, they took Evan out of here and they’re-” I heard the sound of gagging and wondered if she was about to throw up from the stress. “They’re trying to stabilize Jack before they get him in the ambulance.”
“Alright, I need you to go to Jack's office,” Cabot instructed, leaving the room and returning less than a minute later with his computer in hand. “Okay, baby girl, you walk up to the first techie you see and hand them the phone.”
The air seemed to fill with suffocating tension as we heard nothing but her ragged breathing and constant sniffles. With the telltale ding of the elevator, we heard more chaos as the entire tech floor was on high alert.
“What the-” came a startled male voice.
“Take it!” Avery sounded desperate and I could see in my mind that she was shoving the phone into some random person’s hand.
“Sir?” A timid male voice asked, and I could only assume that person had looked at the name on the phone before speaking.
“It’s Cabot, I need you to link my computer to all the video surveillance you have on the situation. And tell me who the fuck did this!”
