by LENA DIAZ,
“Bailey? Bailey?” He turned in a circle, a sick feeling starting in his chest when he didn’t see her.
“Kade, over here.” Jace’s voice echoed from a corner on the opposite side of the stairwell.
Kade ran to him, climbing up mountains of debris as someone else he didn’t know but recognized as an Equalizer joined him.
“Name’s Brady, sir,” the man said.
“I’m Kade. And that’s Jace under there. Grab the other end of that desk. The damn thing must have blown through the wall and landed on him.”
Between the two of them, they pulled the desk off Jace’s body. There was a hole where the wall to the first floor should have been. The hallway was filling with smoke, eerily lit by emergency lights. And flames, at the far end. They needed to get out of here. Now.
While Brady helped Jace to his feet, Kade turned in a circle again, looking at the piles of debris, half-expecting to see Bailey sitting there, perhaps shaking her head. Stunned, shaken, but alive and well. The scene was utter chaos, with people still running past. But the gunshots had stopped. And Bailey wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
He looked back at Jace who was standing now, checking the loading on his pistol. He had a bloody gash on the side of his head but appeared to be okay, otherwise.
“Where’s Bailey?” Kade asked, unable to keep the desperation from his voice.
Jace looked around as if just noticing that she wasn’t with them. “She was right beside me when the explosion went off.”
The three of them called her name, frantically digging through the piles of debris.
Kade shoved chairs and large pieces of wood aside, yelling for Bailey. He found the bodies of the two men who’d fallen to their deaths earlier and tossed them out of the way in his attempts to find her.
“I don’t think she’s . . . here.” Jace looked just as confused as Kade felt.
Brady shook his head, letting them know that he hadn’t seen her either.
“She has to be here,” Kade yelled. “Keep looking.”
After sifting through every inch of the stairwell, twice, the three of them stood in the middle of the debris.
Kade’s heart was pounding so hard he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. “She couldn’t just . . . vanish. Where the hell is she?” He coughed and wiped at the tears that had started streaming from his eyes from the smoke that was beginning to fill the stairwell.
Another man stumbled through the destroyed doorway, soot on his face and arms, his shirt in tatters. He headed toward the parking lot lights shining through the far wall, but stopped when he saw them.
“Kade,” he yelled. “Jace.”
“Mason?” Jace said. He hurried forward. “Good grief, you look like the walking dead.”
“I’m sure I look worse than I am. I had to pull a few guys out from the other explosions.”
“Other explosions?” Jace asked.
“Two, one at the end of the building on the other side, another closer to the middle. Not as powerful as they could have been. We were lucky. We got the hostages out of the tunnels in spite of everything else. The teams that breached from the outside are picking them up in trucks and taking them back to the field for medical attention.” He shook his head. “Bailey’s friends didn’t make it.”
Damn. Kade looked around again, trying to fight down his alarm. Where the hell was Bailey?
“I caught a glimpse of Faegan at one point, cowering in an office doorway,” Mason continued. “But I couldn’t get to him and he disappeared. I’m hoping one of our guys found him and has him in cuffs somewhere outside. I’m about to go check.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder toward the hole in the wall. “The building’s lighting up. You need to get out of here.” He frowned. “Where’s Bailey?”
“She was with us right before the explosion. We haven’t found her yet,” Kade said, his panic growing.
“Hang on a sec. This headset’s been spotty the whole time but I’ll give it a try.” Mason tapped his earpiece while they all moved closer to the opening in the wall, where the air was better. “Austin, this is Mason. You copy?”
A crackling noise sounded and Mason winced, then adjusted the volume. “Austin, Bailey is unaccounted for. Have you . . .” His eyes widened and he looked at Kade. “Got it. Right. Hang tight. We’ve got your back. On the way.”
“What’s going on?” Kade demanded. “Austin knows where she is?”
Mason waved them toward the opening. “This whole place is going up. We need to get out of here.”
“Mason.” Kade grabbed his arm. “What did Austin tell you?”
Mason glanced at Kade’s hand. “You’re gonna want to let me go.”
“Not until you tell me what the hell is going on. Does Austin know anything about Bailey?”
They stared at each other until Mason finally swore and shook his head. He looked at Jace when he answered.
“Faegan’s men are making a stand in the woods near the field. It’s hand-to-hand combat out there, guerrilla warfare. Austin and the rest of the team are in the thick of it. We need to get out there.”
Jace immediately took off through the opening, racing across the parking lot toward the trees. Brady sprinted after him.
“Mason,” Kade gritted out, waiting.
Mason let out an impatient breath. “I don’t have anything solid. But Austin says Devlin reached him a minute ago. He’d followed Faegan through the tunnels but never caught up to him. He lost his trail outside because it was too dark. But another man told Austin that he thought he saw Bailey in the woods at the western edge of the field.” His gaze slid away from Kade’s. “And that the man she was with might have been Faegan.”
Kade swore and shoved past Mason. He took off across the parking lot in the same direction where Jace had just disappeared.
Bailey stumbled against a tree, this time on purpose and not just because it was difficult running through unfamiliar woods by moonlight. She was trying to slow Faegan down in the hopes that someone would see them and help her escape. Or, even better, that she could make him fall and wrench the pistol out of his hand. Then it would be her turn to make him squirm.
He jerked her arm and jammed the muzzle of his pistol against her right ear. She heard the cartilage crunch a split second before agonizing pain shot through her ear and jaw. She bit her lip until it bled to avoid giving him the satisfaction of her crying out.
“You’d better find your balance, Miss Stark, or I’ll decide you’re more trouble than you’re worth and grab another hostage.”
Fighting through the pain, she focused on not stumbling again. He wasn’t bluffing about killing her if she caused him any trouble. She’d seen the proof in that when he’d shot one of his own men who got in his way as he was trying to escape with her. The explosion had somehow knocked her into the hallway instead of back into the stairwell, and Faegan had been right there to shove her into one of the executive offices. Devlin must have seen Faegan because Bailey heard him shout from the other end of the hallway as he was following her into the office.
But Faegan didn’t slow down. He led her through that office and opened a panel in the far wall, then rushed her through a hidden office much like the one she’d seen in Boulder. Then they were running down a tunnel, lit only by emergency lights. They’d passed the cells she’d heard about, and she was relieved to see the doors were open and the cells were empty. The hostages must have already been freed.
After they’d emerged from the tunnels, Faegan hadn’t even slowed down. Even in near darkness, he’d known exactly where he was going. He forced her to run and soon they were in the woods.
He’d picked off three Enforcers who probably never saw him coming.
The occasional sound of gunfire erupted far behind them. More often they heard shouts. She would have been tempted to shout herself if she thought there was some way to avoid having Faegan immediately shoot her. For now, she would have to do whatever he told her. At least until she figured out a way
to get the upper hand.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Where no one will think to look for me.” He shoved her forward, following behind her now. “Keep moving, straight ahead.”
They topped the ridge and she stopped, surprised to see they were right back at EXIT, standing at the end of the parking lot. The entire right side of the building was engulfed in flames.
“Why are we back here? You can’t want to go into the building. It’s a death trap in there.”
The bore of his pistol filled her vision. It was only three inches away. “I had to leave faster than I’d intended so some big giant of a man didn’t catch me. Everything I’ve accumulated during this mission is inside the safe in my office. I’m not losing it all to some curious firefighter once they make it all the way out here, or some police officer intent on ensuring the so-called rightful owner gets his valuables back. It was hard work getting all those Enforcers to give up the information on their bank accounts and safety-deposit boxes when we were interrogating them. There are millions of dollars’ worth of Swiss bank account numbers in that safe. So, I think you can see, Miss Stark, why we’re not going anywhere until I open it.”
“You were interrogating Enforcers so you could get their money? Let me guess. You figured out that Henry Sanchez didn’t have any money, so you didn’t even bother capturing him. That’s why you killed him.”
“It’s called being efficient, Miss Stark. I may have enormous resources at my disposal for this little operation. But I still have to use them judiciously. Sanchez was a wastrel. Once I realized there was no point in expending the time to bring him in, I had him eliminated.”
“I guess I was too much trouble too since your men have been trying to kill me instead of going after my money like they did with other Enforcers.”
“Can you blame me? You’ve escaped one too many times. Definitely not worth the trouble. Now, if you please. Get moving.”
“But the building is on fire.”
“Then we should hurry before it spreads, don’t you think? Move.”
The field where they’d taken off in the helicopter was dark now, illuminated only by moonlight. But thankfully it was almost a full moon, so Kade could see much better than on another night. Still, even though he’d been looking everywhere for Bailey, he’d yet to find any trace of her.
He spotted a glint of metal not too far away, just inside the tree line. Friend or foe, he couldn’t tell, so he was as quiet as possible while he made his way toward where he’d seen that flash. He was about fifteen feet away when he realized that what he’d seen was moonlight shining off a piece of metal on Austin’s prosthetics. He stood with Devlin, Mason, and Jace and was apparently unaware that he presented an easy target.
“Austin,” Kade whispered loudly as he hurried toward them. “Get back, your legs—”
The sound of a gunshot rang out.
Austin flew backward, landing on a bush.
Devlin returned fire from where the muzzle flash had come. A scream from the other side of the field told of his success. Then they were all crouching over Austin, who was cursing nonstop as he pulled himself up to sitting. He bent over his right prosthetic, which now had a hole right through the middle.
“Damn it,” he said. “Do you know how much these things cost?”
“I’ll buy you another one,” Devlin said. “Are you hit anywhere else?”
“Only in my pride,” he grumbled. He looked up at Kade. “I’m guessing you were trying to warn me. Maybe next time you could do it more quickly.”
“Have any of you seen Bailey? I still can’t find her.”
Austin shook his head, for once looking serious. “Not me.” He lifted what appeared to be binoculars hanging from a strap around his neck. “These are night-vision goggles. I’ve been radioing in directions to our guys so they can take out the bad dudes. We’ve got most of them on the run. But I haven’t seen Bailey.” He pointed behind him back toward EXIT. “I’ve been watching the field and the rings of trees around it. But I haven’t been watching back behind us. That’s probably the only place she could be for me not to have seen her out here.”
Kade whirled back toward the direction of EXIT. The sky was lit with a flickering shade of orange that had nothing to do with the moonlight. The entire building was on fire. If Faegan had taken Bailey there, she was in worse trouble than he’d feared.
He tore off across the field, trying to ignore the throbbing in his thigh that had started right after the blast. If he hadn’t worn his brace, he wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone run. The pounding of footsteps sounded behind him as either Mason or Jace or both ran after him.
He headed toward the left side of the building, the same side they’d all escaped earlier. Black smoke belched from the rips in the outer wall. But the flames didn’t appear to have reached this part yet.
Jace grabbed Kade’s hand before he would have disappeared into the building. Mason was beside him, gasping for breath after their sprint.
“Wait, Kade. Let’s think this through,” Jace said. “We’ll only get one shot at finding her and getting out of this inferno in time, if we even have that.”
“Assuming she’s even in there,” Mason added.
“Someone should tell Devlin—” Kade started.
“He’ll watch out for her. He stayed back with Austin,” Mason answered.
Kade nodded. It killed him to wait to go into the building. But what Jace said made sense. “All right. What’s the plan?”
A scream shattered the night, a scream that sounded like it had come from inside the building.
“We improvise,” Kade snarled. He ran through the opening.
Smoke blasted him, making his eyes stream with tears. He had to duck down to try to find breathable air. Behind him, Mason and Jace coughed and cursed but kept pace with him down the hallway. The smoke was like a curtain, reaching out to them, sucking away the oxygen.
Kade ripped his shirt off and tied it over his nose and mouth, like a bandana, to filter out the smoke. The others did the same.
Flames lit up the far side of the hallway and crept closer to them. Kade figured the only reason the fire hadn’t already consumed the building was that Cyprian Cardenas had probably spared no expense buying fire-retardant carpets and paint. It was probably the only good thing the man had ever done.
The roaring sound of the fire was so loud they had to make hand motions to communicate. They headed into the nearest offices, clearing them like they’d done earlier.
Another scream sounded.
Kade raced back into the hallway where Jace and Mason met him. He pointed toward the next office down, which had probably once borne the name of Cyprian Cardenas, from the posh look of the entryway. He took the lead, rushing toward the doorway. He flattened his back against the wall and the others did the same. With pistol in hand, he ducked down and leaned around the open doorway. His heart dropped to his stomach when he saw what was inside the office.
Bailey was on her back on the floor, her hands wrapped around Faegan’s wrists. He was on top of her, a pistol in his right hand, struggling to point it at her.
“You bitch,” he yelled. “Spit it out. Spit it out or I’ll blow your brains out!”
Kade aimed his gun at Faegan. But Faegan saw him and rolled to the side, yanking Bailey on top of him, and in the way. Kade swore and jerked his gun to the side. Faegan jumped to his feet, pulling Bailey with him as a human shield.
Mason and Jace flanked Kade, pistols pointed at Faegan, but their fingers on the frames of their guns so they wouldn’t accidentally shoot Bailey.
“Spit it out,” Faegan yelled in Bailey’s ear.
She shook her head, and it was then that Kade saw the flash of white in her mouth.
“Let me go before the ink dissolves,” she yelled around what Kade now realized was a wadded-up piece of paper.
“I’ll shoot you,” Faegan yelled, sounding desperate as he ducked behind her to keep from presenting
the others with a target.
“My blood will destroy the numbers on the paper,” she yelled back in a muffled voice.
Jace nudged Kade and pointed to their left. A wall safe sat open. Whatever had been inside it must now be in Bailey’s mouth. The woman was both brilliant and crazy. She’d probably bought herself some time by shoving whatever the paper was into her mouth. But Faegan would no doubt shoot her the second he realized that the paper was now worthless, if the ink did dissolve as she’d warned.
The dull roar of flames from down the hall suddenly whooshed loudly, shooting past the open doorway. Mason slammed the door shut, but fire was already licking at the carpet beneath the door.
Faegan dragged Bailey backward, his gun pressed against the base of her skull. The open doorway to another office, probably Cardenas’s hidden office like the one in Boulder, was just a few feet away.
“We can’t let him into that office,” Mason said.
Jace stepped to the right, cutting off Faegan’s path.
“Move or I swear I’ll kill her,” Faegan yelled.
Kade motioned to Bailey, trying to silently communicate what he needed her to do.
She slowly nodded.
Faegan dragged her back another step.
Jace moved forward.
Faegan suddenly shifted his gun toward Jace.
“Now, Bailey,” Kade yelled.
She lifted her feet off the floor and fell right out of Faegan’s arms.
Caught off-balance, he lurched toward Jace, his gun going off. It hit Jace and he spun around, back against the wall. Mason brought his gun up and squeezed off a shot just as Faegan leaped through the doorway into the other office.
“The tunnels,” Jace said. “He’s going into the tunnels.”
Kade ran to Bailey, who was making odd noises in her throat. “Bailey, sweetheart. Bailey?”
Mason started to kneel down to check on Jace, but Jace waved him back. “Body armor. I’m fine. Let’s get the bastard.”
