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Bang bang.
The agent and the First Daughter dropped to the ground, Masden’s velocity rolling them over and over.
The doors closed and before Rory could hit the button, the elevator began its descent.
He grabbed up Amelia who stared dumbfounded at her friend and the agent a few feet away. Blood, black in the gloomy interior, was spreading and Rory couldn’t tell who’d been shot. “I need an ambulance, right now,” he said in his comms. “Hannah and her guard are down.”
Confirmation came from Cal.
Beatrice’s voice was cold as steel. “Amelia?”
“Fine,” she said, even though she was shaking like a leaf.
“Oh, god.Hannah.” Amelia fought Rory’s hold, trying to get to her friend.
“Are you all right?” he asked, running his hands over her.
“Don’t worry about me! Take care of her!”
“Amelia.” He used his no-nonsense tone, keeping his own panic at bay. She seemed okay, but it had been close.Tooclose. She could be dead right now. “Are you hurt?”
“I can’t stand,” she said, voice shaking. The gleam of tears in her eyes told him she was in pain. Her dress was ruined, stained, torn. “I think he broke my ankle for real.”
Fucking. Asshole. Bastard. His list of names went on and on in his head. He removed his coat, setting the folded cane on the ground, and wrapped the garment, warm from his body heat, around her shoulders. The temp was in the seventies but the concrete stayed cooler than outside. He feared she might go into shock. “He could come back. I’m going to place you over here.”
She half-sobbed against his chest as he lifted her and moved her next to a short yellow pylon used as a bumper to keep cars from getting too close to the wall or elevator shaft. “Please, Rory,” she whispered. “Tell me Hannah’s not dead.”
“She’s not,” Masden said on a groan, and they both looked his way. He held a hand against his left side, blood oozing between his fingers. “But I need a…doctor.”
Hannah, grabbing her arm sat up and reached for him. Her dress was smeared with blood—hers and his. “Call 911,” she ordered them in a frantic voice.
Masden’s eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped once more to his back, unconscious.
“Cohen!” Hannah cried. Wild-eyed, she turned to Rory. “Do something!”
He yanked off his tie and pulled his shirt over his head. “Hold this against his side,” he told her even as he used the tie as a tourniquet to bind her injured arm.
“Don’t you dare die on me,” Hannah snarled at the unconscious agent before her. “How dare you jump in front of a bullet for me before you’ve admitted to my face that you love me?”
A sharp blaring started from across the way. “Someone’s tripped the fire alarm,” Moe announced in Rory’s ear over the noise. “Gonna be chaos.”
“The child’s outside with our kidnapper,” Beatrice said. “It’s…wait. Is thatJose?”
Amelia pressed a hand to her ear as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “He’s not in the garage?”
That’s when Rory heard a motor rev, the driver throwing the car into gear. Tires screeched as they backed out of their hiding place and gunned it.
Except they weren’t fleeing. Lights bounced on the far wall, then straightened as the car took the corner.
The car was headed right for them.
TWENTY-THREE
Blinded by the headlights, Rory threw his arm up and shoved the First Daughter behind the pylon.
Behind him, he heard the elevator open. The sound of gunfire.
Time slowed, shifted.
