AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Washing her face,” Felix says.
Austin heads for the door, coming up short as a woman exits. “Was there a tall brunette in a blue dress in there?” he asks.
The woman looks back at the door and shakes her head. “No, just me.”
My heart drops out my ass, and I’m right behind Austin as he tears the door open. Felix is at my heels. The room is empty, but there is another exit that leads to the first room.
“Shit.”
“She’s gone.”
A startled beta jumps out of our way as we fly out the other door. Austin stops a few people asking if they saw her. An older man points to the elevators and says something I don’t catch. But Austin is heading that way, so we follow.
“What did he say?” Felix asks.
“He saw her head this way, took the elevator down.”
“Was she alone?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“She’s going after the painting.” It was the only possible thing, and after Melody Lynn’s observations, I am almost one-hundred percent certain that is where she went.
The elevator dings open on the 17th floor, and I head down the short hall. A door hangs open. It looks like someone rammed it with a log it is so splintered. There is no way Audrey did that.
Austin toes the door open, and a piece of wood falls to the ground. He steps into the apartment, the plush carpet silencing any of our footsteps. A safe hidden behind a painting is wide open, jewels and cash piled inside. The first bedroom is empty, the second equally vacant.
Felix walks to the floor-to-ceiling window, and a gasp steals his breath as he looks down at something.
“We have to go. He has her,” Felix says, and he is running past me, pushing past Austin and out of the apartment before I can move to the window and see what he did.
Jason Vanross has Audrey by the neck, out on the pool deck on the next floor down. She looks terrified as her feet dangle off the ground. Then he drops her into the pool, pushing her back under the water when her head bobs up.
It is more than enough before I’m out of the apartment, tearing after Felix, Austin now following us. I take the emergency stairs down, missing the last four steps completely as I jump to the landing. Then I burst out of the stairwell and into a community area, the pool deck straight through the windows.
Felix stops as he catches sight of the scene in front of us. I tumble into Felix’s frozen form, and Austin barrels past us. Jason’s head snaps up as Austin flies out the door, and Jason drags Audrey out of the pool by her hair, quickly dragging her limp body after him closer to the ledge. She is still. Not even a breath raises her chest, and it freezes my heart inside my own.
An evil grin lifts the corners of his mouth as he watches us. His eyes dance with a sick satisfaction in the low light of the patio.
“About time you came for her, I thought she’d die with no witnesses.” He shakes her, and her head lulls to the side like a rag doll.
“Stop right there,” Austin commands.
“You’re not the one in charge of this situation right now,” Jason taunts him. “How does it feel to spiral?”
“You’re a dead man walking.”
It isn’t an idle threat. Austin doesn’t play a bluffing game. He lays all of his cards out and tells you exactly how you are going to die.
“The only thing that would make this sweeter is if her brother was here,” Jason continues, as if Austin is not pulsing with rage less than ten feet from him. Audrey sputters, coughing up water after another jerk of Jason’s arm. “That a girl, get that water out of your lungs so you can see your death coming.”
Audrey struggles weakly against his hold, her fingers digging into the back of his hand. He laughs cruelly, and I watch as he curls his fingers into her stomach, causing her to whimper.
I take a step, ready to pounce across the distance, and he shakes a finger at me. “Ah-ah, stay where you’re at or she doesn’t last until Sin gets here to watch.”
She fights harder, screeching at the mention of her brother. “No!”
“Don’t worry, sweets, I’ll make it fast,” he says. Pressing his lips to her temple, he adds, “For old times’ sake.”
