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I drove myself higher, lunging up the stairs right behind my brother. He stopped at the first floor, scanning left and right, then kept going. My thighs were like lead, my chest was on fire.
“Hey! You!” someone called behind us.
I didn’t turn around to look. Whichever way this went, it wasn’t going to be good. “Find a way to get to them!” I gasped.
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” Thom sucked in hard breaths and scanned the landing as we stopped on the second floor.
The damn rooms were a blur, but along the wide hallway that wrapped around the outside of the rooms, I caught a glimpse of night. “There!” I stabbed my finger toward it.
He jerked his gaze to me, then down the stairs before his eyes widened. I risked a glance, to see four of the fuckers after us. We didn’t wait around to chat, just lunged along the hallway and kept going.
Desperation filled me, a kind of sick, stabbing feeling I’d never felt before. But as I made for that hallway, it wasn’t Riven’s or Hunter’s face I saw. Nor was it my sister I raced toward. It was Helene.
“Down here!” Thomas called.
I raced after him, knowing my steps were slowing like hell. Thom lunged through a cracked open door at the end of the hall and waited, slamming it closed behind me as I careened through.
Bang!
I sucked in hard breaths and stumbled, bracing myself on the end of a desk.
“HEY!” Someone beat against the door.
I flinched and turned to my brother. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
But he was staring at something at the end of the room. He took a slow step forward.
“OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!” the asshole on the other side roared.
I spun around, desperately searching the windows for a way out. But Thom seemed unconcerned about the guards beating their fists and roaring threats through the door, all he cared about was the paintings hanging on the wall.
I strode toward the window as he slowly made his way toward them.
“We have to jump, you know that, right?” I searched the sill for the locks. But he never answered, pissing me off. I spun, barking, “Thom!”
But he was just staring at the damn painting and the pictures next to it.
Keys rattled outside the door. I unleashed a snarl, wrenching my focus back to the window and found the press lock on the side of the damn thing.One click and the window released, leaving me to shove the window upwards and turn.
Cold night air rushed in as I lunged, grabbed my goddamn brother, and hauled him away.
“Wait” He fought against me as the study door burst open.
All I saw was the glint of the gun as the guards rushed into the room, a gun pointed at my goddamn brother as he yanked some kind of stupid map from the wall.
”NO!” I screamed, spinning to grab a large crystal vase from the small table next to me, and threw it across the room.
The thing weighed a goddamn ton and hit the guard in the head. I didn’t waste a single second rushing forward to grab Thom as he stumbled my way, his wide eyes still pinned on the paintings on the wall he’d left behind.
With a guttural roar, I shoved him through the window, then slammed into him hard as we slipped out the window on the second floor.
“The fuck you do!” the guard yelled behind me as he grabbed my shirt and yanked me backwards.
Movement came from a window two rooms down as another of Harmon’s fucking men ducked out of the window onto a balcony and took aim. Thom froze, staring, as Coulter followed the guard out, dipping his head low until he straightened and adjusted his jacket.
He took one long look at both of us and clucked his tongue. “Now, this isn’t where I left you, is it, Doctor?” He shifted that hateful glare to me. “No filthy loading dock, no gun pressed to your head. The only question is…what do I do with you now?”
“Sir,” a call came from the open window Coulter had stepped through. “The auction, sir. It’s time.”
