“Apparently.”
Chapter Nine
Angie rubbed her forehead in an attempt to drown out the siren. Just when it cycled down and gifted them with a minute of silence, it wound up again. She hadn’t counted on the never-ending noise. She hadn’t counted on a lot of things.
The plan had been so simple. Force Lowell to make a move. See if he valued her life and how much he would pay for it. Push the controlled man and test his precious rules. If his resolve could be shaken, all while under his false umbrella of protection, it would prove she got to him.
McBain ruined it. This unplanned lockdown ruined it. The faulty cell phones ruined it. The list kept getting longer, just as her wariness intensified.
She hadn’t planned for the other events unfolding around them. That could only mean one thing. Someone was taking over her blueprint and imposing one of their own. The new game proved much more dangerous than the game she had envisioned.
Maybe one of her men went rogue, but she couldn’t see an end game there. She’d paid them. They owed her.
She regretted not stealing the rubies and getting out while she could. There were other men. Other sources of money. Next time she’d find one who wasn’t married and didn’t carry a chill with him wherever he went.
“It would appear someone wants me dead this evening.” Lowell delivered his comment from right behind her. His breath blew across her neck.
Normally she’d find the heat of his mouth sexy, but something else was at play. Something dark and threatening. She didn’t turn around because she didn’t want to see his face. Not now.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe McBain’s twisted idea of a drill. I could see him using a party to prove how much we need him.” But she knew there was more to this than a misguided security test.
“How can you be so sure?” Lowell leaned against the credenza so his long legs stretched out on either side of her. The intimate gesture trapped her in one more way.
“No one has actually attacked.” She ignored the fissure of dread that threatened to crack her composure. “We have an alarm and a locked room. McBain easily could have done that for your safety.”
“A second ago you thought he was the problem. Now you think he’s saving me.” She could hear the misplaced amusement in his voice. She turned to see what he could possibly find funny about this situation.
“I, uh, am giving you options. This could be some sort of protocol we don’t know about.”
“You don’t believe this is fake. You know it’s very real.”
The words zinged across her senses, striking far closer to the truth than she could comfortably tolerate. “If you are truly in danger, why be so calm?”
“Nothing is going to happen to me.”
She didn’t understand the turn in the conversation but didn’t let the confusion show. Lowell despised weakness. It was why he cast his wife aside and found his son so lacking.
Angie had remained in his life this long because she never cried or acted the role of the damsel in distress. She gave him strength and certainty and followed all of his rules without complaint. Even though keeping up with those rules was exhausting.
Now she summoned all her acting skills to give him what he paid for. “You’re human, Lowell. If someone gets to you, you could die.”
His gaze scanned the room, hesitating briefly on Brandon before returning to her. “That’s not how this night will end.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh, this nonsense will finally end. I’ve tolerated it long enough. Frankly, I only brought McBain in because Palmer was so against it. I thought he needed the shake-up.”
Only Lowell would see a death threat as an annoying nit to be batted away. She thought he’d taken the second letter seriously, but now she wondered if he’d just been toying with them all.
“You never called the police.” At the time she’d been grateful because she didn’t want people poking around in her life. More than one former boss might be willing to say a little too much.
“Threats are not the kind of business publicity I want. They suggest I can’t control my family or the people closest to me.” His mouth danced over the words.
“You can’t believe someone in this room is involved.” It took all her strength to keep her voice steady.
“Before I go home tonight, I’ll know who sent the threats and who set all of this up. I can promise you that.” He used the same sexy voice from the bedroom to issue his warning.
Her chest caved in on her. She opened her mouth to try to draw in enough breath, but she couldn’t grab the air she needed. “I wish I had your confidence.”
“I’ve never found you to be lacking in that department.”
Her breath came in pants now. “Who do you think is behind this?”
His feral smile was like that of a predator pouncing on its prey. “I’m working that out.”
He knows.
Somehow he knew. She didn’t understand who had tipped him off or why, but the evidence stared her in the face. “You keep talking in riddles.”
Brandon stepped up to them, interrupting the conversation. Normally that sort of behavior would tick her off. This time she welcomed it.
He never looked at her. He was too busy growling and scowling at his father. “I volunteer to go out there.”
Lowell all but rolled his eyes. “The door is locked from the outside.”
“We have five men here. Surely we can break it down. We ram it. We use the table. There is plenty of muscle in here to get this done.”
Angie felt a kick of reluctant admiration for the kid. He showed more gumption and courage than she’d ever seen before. More than Palmer and his armed sidekick.
But that didn’t mean she wanted to watch him die. She wasn’t controlling this game or the outcome. She had no idea where it was heading, but she sure couldn’t have any piece of it tracing back to her. Who knew how loyal her paid muscle would be under police
questioning?
“What if there’s a gunman on the other side?” she asked, hoping to bring some common sense to the topic.
His gaze never left his father. “I’m willing to take that chance.”
Palmer stepped up with his hands up for quiet. “Does anyone else hear a strange noise? It’s like a scratching or something.”
“From outside?” Brandon asked.
Palmer looked up. “From above.”
* * *
RISA CRAWLED ON HER HANDS and knees through the blue-lit tunnels. She didn’t have to go far because Aaron’s strategy and planning started her off close to the conference room. She could hear the rumbling of conversation coming from somewhere beneath her whenever the alarm rested between cycles.
The bigger problem was crawling on her belly without letting her knees and elbows thump against the inside of the vent. Every wiggly step took longer than planned because of the need for silence, but up ahead she saw a shaft of brighter light.
Hiding behind the alarm’s screaming siren, she double-timed her movements. The metal clunked when she lifted her knee. She froze, waiting for shouts or gunfire or something. Instead, she heard the same raised voices beneath her.
They were fighting about leaving the room and a locked door. Someone was holding them in and she couldn’t get a sense of who.
She peeked through the crisscross of the ceiling vent. The light cover blurred the images below, but she saw six people, two holding weapons and one female. That had to be the infamous Angie and the only reason Risa was even in this mess.
If she could crawl across the light, she might be able to get to the space above the outside hall and see what was happening out there and blocking an easy exit.
She shifted her hips, and the metal beneath her knee thumped just as the siren came to a rest. The thud echoed all around her, drowning out the heartbeat pounding in her ear. Faces looked up, guns aimed in her direction.
“Who’s there?” A male asked the question over and over, his vo
ice growing more agitated each time. “Look up. You can see a shadow.”
“Someone fire.”
She scooted back, not caring about the noise she made now. She tugged on the rope to let Aaron know she needed help. The increase in shouting started a second later. Crawling backward, she moved too fast and accidentally wedged her butt into an angled piece, a corner turn she forgot about. Shifting her legs back, she scrambled to get out. Tried to turn around.
A bang shattered what was left of her calm. She wrapped her arms around her head and lay as flat as possible. The ping of metal on metal whipped around her. She wanted to move, but fear kept her locked in place.
Aaron had other ideas.
The pull of the rope against her stomach choked out a cough, and a second volley of shots boomed around her. She tried to get her balance back and center her weight over her legs, but they went flying out again when the rope yanked against her.
The rub burned through her shirt and straight to her skin. Her breath caught and her side lit on fire as her body slid with a squeak through the vent. Her fingers trailed along the metal, trying to catch an edge and slow the race down before her body got ripped in half.
The world kept rushing by her. When her mind caught up with her body, the haze cleared. The yelling in front of her had faded and she heard Aaron shouting her name. The panic in his voice soothed hers. She stopped trying to slow her movements and let her body be pulled across the metal panels.
Air breezed up her pants legs as her bare feet left the vent. Rough hands wrapped around her ankles and yanked her down. Her toes had barely hit the floor when hands started roaming all over her.
“We heard the gunfire. Were you hit?” Aaron’s usually steady voice wavered, but his hands kept moving.
“Aaron, let her have a second before you crush the remaining breath out of her.” She registered Royal’s voice.
When Aaron fell to his knees and pressed his palms up her legs, she rested her hands on his shoulders. Without him being there, her knees would have buckled and her body crunched on the floor. Touching him, running her hands over him, brought her mind racing back to reality.
The trembling in her muscles stopped when her fingers slipped into his hair. Even his scent calmed her.
“I’m okay.” She swayed as she said the words. The spike of adrenaline crashed, and exhaustion stole over her body. She wasn’t sure she could lift her arms if she had to. If armed attackers made another run, she’d be a puddle on the floor.
Then he stood again, looming over her with a severe frown that before today might have sent her scurrying. “Looks like the bullets missed you. Any injuries? Even if you weren’t shot, anything we need to check and take care of?”
“I don’t think so. Honestly, I can’t feel anything right now.” She slipped her hand over his cheek, loving the brush of his stubble on her skin. The violent shaking in her fingers made her pull back sooner than she wanted.
He grabbed her wrist and placed a rough kiss on her palm. His lips shook as hard as her insides as his eyes met hers. “I’m sorry I agreed to let you do that. So sorry. That never should have happened.”
“For a minute there, I second-guessed myself, too. I really thought one of the bullets would clip me. They bounced all around.”
“Never again.”
“Right. It was a one-time thing. It’s over.” She soothed him because his drawn face and pale lips made her think he needed the reassurance.
Royal cleared his throat. “I know the timing is bad, but can you sum up what you saw?”
She sensed Royal was stepping in and giving Aaron time to regain control. Since she needed a few minutes to regain her composure and talking gave her the chance to think about something other than the horror of the past few hours, she focused on giving an answer. “Six people trapped in a room.”
“Where did the shooting come from?”
“Inside the room. Definitely. No one else was up there with me and all shots originated from the same general point.” She rubbed her stomach and hissed when the fabric touched her raw skin.
“Didn’t expect that answer. Sounds like one shooter and not a group of rogue attackers like we’ve been picking off.” Royal turned to Aaron. “Palmer, maybe?”
Aaron ignored the question and frowned at her as his gaze traveled to her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I won’t let it drop, so you may as well tell me now.” His gaze kept returning to her stomach. Another few minutes and he might rip her shirt off, and not in a good way.
She waved off the concern even as she secretly hoped for burn cream. “Nothing serious. A case of rope burn.”
He dropped his jacket behind him and rolled up his sleeves. “Let me see.”
The man had lost his mind. She gave him a bug-eyed stare. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“Royal is—”
Aaron reached for her. “Married.”
Royal smiled. “But not dead.”
She had trouble digesting the information. Her gaze flashed to his bare ring finger. “You’re married?”
He held up his hand. “Don’t wear one for safety reasons. They tend to get caught in things, which makes accurate shooting tougher.”
She thought about slapping Aaron’s hands away. It wasn’t as if he’d so much as seen her bra strap before now. Stripping down was out of the question. Then there was the problem of the looming danger that never seemed to be far away.
“Unbutton your shirt and slip it off.” Aaron tugged on the bottom of her shirt, loosening it from her pants.
The friction inflamed her already-bruised skin. She tried to catch the sharp intake of breath before he noticed.
Too late.
“That’s what I thought. Nothing casual about this. It could get infected without treatment, and clothes are going to be unbearable for a while.” He went back to work but slowed down, gentled his movements. He opened the bottom few buttons and with a soft touch and careful hands pulled the edges of the shirt away from her body.
Royal’s mouth dropped open.
Aaron was more vocal. “Damn.”
If their reaction was any indication, she was afraid to look down. “How bad is it?”
“How much does it hurt?” Royal asked.
Aaron’s finger traced the skin above and below the injury. Even that kiss of skin against skin had her squirming. “A lot.”
“We have to get you to a doctor. At the very least, you need first aid. We don’t even have a kit. It’s downstairs.”
His pained expression—eyes filled with sadness and cheeks flushed red with an anger she believed spoke of a need for vengeance—was for her. She loved that he cared. She couldn’t believe they’d gone from a missed chance of a date to a moment where the rest of the world fell away when she touched his face.
She also knew whatever they had and whatever first aid she needed had to wait. “After we get in that room, rescue all those people and make sure no one else dies, then we can find a Band-Aid.”
The tension around Aaron’s eyes eased. “All in a day’s work.”
Chapter Ten
When the riot of noise ended, the occupants of the small conference room slowly came out from their hiding places under the table and behind chairs. One at a time, they stood up and returned to their positions around the table.
A squeak of a shoe against the floor sent them all diving for a second round. That time lacked the gunfire and shadows on the ceiling.
By the time they’d filed back into place, tiles hung loose from the ceiling next to exposed wires. Broken glass crunched under their feet as the room croaked and groaned from the aftermath of the shoot-out.
Angie cleared her throat three times before she could force the words out. “What was that? An attack? If so, why were we the only ones shooting?”
“Who was that?” Mark asked before he dropped into the nearest chair.
“Now do you believe me when I say we hav
e to get out of here?” Brandon headed for the door, only to be stopped be a shake of Max’s head. “Enough waiting. The next wave could be a real attack and not just someone doing recon. If we ram the door—”
Palmer took up the position at the head of the table. “We don’t know who or what is out there.”
Angie watched the Lord of the Flies type of breakdown of leadership in the room. Arguments that worked just minutes ago weren’t succeeding at convincing anyone, including her. Between the screaming fear bouncing around inside her and the very real pressure that came from having opened the door to this mess, she could not take any more.
She’d made a mistake. A terrible mistake. She’d refocus and move on, but she had to get out of there first, and she didn’t see where she was one inch closer to making that happen.
She bit down on her lip as her gaze moved around the room. So much despair and worry. She saw it in the harsh lines on their faces and caved-in looks of their eyes.
Until Lowell moved into her line of sight. There was not a hair out of place on him. He’d taken a seat at the middle of the table, not his usual position. He watched the room erupt in chaos around him, wearing a smirk of satisfaction.
For the span of a blink she wondered if he was the mastermind behind today’s activities. The cool demeanor and lack of panic made him stand out. He’d say those were the characteristics that made him successful. The ones that let him rise above the petty concerns that stopped lesser men.
She’d heard the speech a million times. She’d never believed it…until now. He possessed that certain something that let the world collapse while he stood on the sidelines working on how to profit from the destruction.
“It’s time.” His voice boomed through the room with the force of a megaphone.
“Exactly.” Relief washed over Brandon’s features. “Let’s get out of here and take our chances in the hall. If we stay in a group, it’s harder for anyone to cause trouble.”
Lowell folded his hands in front of him on the table as if he were holding his weekly executive meeting. Forget that he had just survived a gunfire battle. “I meant, it’s time for the person who has been hosting this little party to step forward. We aren’t leaving until we figure out who’s behind this.”
Switched Page 8
