by Elise Noble
A quiet click was the only giveaway that Ravi had done his job, at least until Emmy slowly pushed open the door, keeping her body to the side. Did she have a gun too? If not, she’d certainly have a knife, and she knew how to use it.
The door inched open to reveal a surprisingly tidy living room. Beige carpet, two low cream leather couches at right angles to each other opposite the mother of all TVs. Matching coffee table and sideboard that looked as if they came from IKEA. Dining table with four chairs and one used plate. Drapes pulled tight across every window. No Ryland.
Alaric’s mind fired through the possibilities. Two doors opened from the left side of the room, and another on the right. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen? Emmy headed left with Sky in tow, leaving Alaric and Ravi to take…yes, the kitchen. The smell of cooked chicken permeated throughout, and a collection of unwashed pans lay jumbled in the sink. No sign of a woman’s touch in the room. No magnets on the fridge, no rubber gloves, no moisturiser near the faucet. And unless Ryland had squashed himself into a cupboard, he wasn’t there either. Which meant he was in—
Oh, fuck.
A crash sounded from the other side of the apartment, followed by the slap, slap, slap of feet on tile. Since the living room was carpeted, that could only mean one thing. Ryland had escaped.
Alaric shot out of the front door in time to see Ryland dragging a woman along the hallway in his direction, the door to the janitor’s closet swinging open behind him. What the…? Gemma. It was Gemma, and her hands were secured in front of her. A piece of duct tape hung from one side of her face, a gag loosened in the struggle, and her eyes were ringed red from crying. Alaric fumbled for his gun, got it up, but Ryland had already swung around, putting Gemma between himself and a bullet.
“Stop!”
But Ryland didn’t stop. He backed away, his arm a steel band around Gemma’s chest. She struggled, kicking her feet, then squealed in pain as he squeezed harder. A trickle of blood ran down her neck where Frankenstein’s monster pressed the tip of a knife against it.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Alaric felt rather than saw a presence behind him. Emmy? Ravi? Sky? He didn’t take his eyes off Ryland to check. Sky was right—the man was a giant, and right now his gaze roved wildly like a cornered bull’s as he shuffled backwards towards a dead end. What would he do when he reached the wall? Gemma was sobbing now, but Alaric couldn’t shoot without risking her life.
“Put her down. You’ve got nowhere to go.”
Except that was a lie.
As Ryland passed the door to the roof, he quickly moved sideways, hitting it full-force with one shoulder. The flimsy lock didn’t stand a chance. And the man could move. The door bounced off the wall and slammed shut, and by the time Alaric got it open again, Ryland was on top of the damn building.
Gemma’s sobs turned to screams as the wind hit them. Seventeen floors up, it was blowing a gale, and Ryland was still backing up, this time towards the north tower. The full moon glinted off the knife as shadows danced like ghouls in the gloom.
“Stand still.”
Ryland glanced behind himself, judging the distance. He was ten yards or so from the edge, but unless he planned on jumping, he really was out of options. He was also unhinged—that much was clear. Alaric lowered his gun and paused in front of the door, hoping that if he stood his ground, Ryland would calm down. It seemed to work to some degree. Ryland stopped moving.
Ravi took up a position beside Alaric, but where were Emmy and Sky? Alaric’s heart stuttered. That crash downstairs… He’d just assumed that since Emmy was involved, they were both okay. But what if one of them had been injured? Knocked out, or worse?
Shit, double shit, triple shit.
He needed to check on them, but he couldn’t, not with a hostage situation on the roof demanding his attention. He hated hostage situations. The last one he’d been involved with had gone on for almost two days and only ended when an FBI sniper had gotten a clear shot. Alaric didn’t have a clear shot, and he was unlikely to get one with the wind blowing in unpredictable gusts. And if he tried to shoot and missed, there was a cinderblock plant room Ryland could jump behind.
The other problem was the knife. Alaric was ten yards away, too far to intervene physically if Ryland decided to take his fear and anger out on Gemma. If the worst happened and he cut her, she might bleed out even if they put all their efforts into saving her life and let Ryland get away.
“Now what?” Ravi whispered.
Good question. Alaric would have to take the lead on this. Ravi was smart, but he was a cat burglar, an acrobat, and a thief, not a hostage negotiator. And they were in a stand-off. There was no choice but to talk.
“Well, Ryland, this is an awkward position we find ourselves in…”
It was times like this that Alaric wished he was still bumming around on a beach in Thailand.
CHAPTER 42 - SKY
“WHERE ARE WE going?”
Some crazy-ass freak was carrying a crying brunette across a roof, Alaric had a fucking gun aimed at said freak, and yet Emmy was dragging me away. What the hell?
“Shh.”
Quite frankly, I was still trying to work out what happened. We’d nosed through the bathroom in Ryland’s apartment and found it empty apart from a dozen air fresheners, seven bottles of bleach, three of drain cleaner, four spare shower curtains, a lifetime’s supply of shower gel, and two toilet brushes—then moved into the bedroom, which was also pretty spartan. A man who liked housework? Well, that was a novelty. The bed was unmade, too low for a man of Ryland’s size to hide underneath, and the laundry hamper was on the small side as well. The only place left to check was the double wardrobe. As Emmy approached it, there’d been a sort of…squeak from inside, followed by a crash, and we tried to get the door open but it was jammed shut. By the time we broke it off the hinges and found the hole through to the janitor’s-closet-turned-prison-cell on the other side of the wall, Ryland was halfway up the bloody stairs.
And now we were halfway down them.
“Hello? There’s a woman being held hostage up there. Shouldn’t we be calling the police?”
“Oh, sure, so they can show up in an hour and make a bad situation worse.”
“Well, how exactly are we helping? You just left Alaric and Ravi up there on their own.”
“Alaric’s a big boy. He can handle it. Now, this is one of those rare and memorable occasions where we get to use the elevator.”
“Everything okay, boss?” one of the Blackwood men asked as Emmy tugged me through the sliding doors. The thing stank. If I lived in this place, I’d take the stairs every day.
“There’s a hostage situation on the roof. Once we’ve hit the ground floor, call the elevator back up and hold it here, okay?”
“Roger that.”
Why were we leaving? I thought Emmy was supposed to be a fighter, but this felt more like a disorganised retreat.
“Did you see the knife?” I asked as the lift rumbled into life.
“Yeah, I saw the knife. Did you see the serial killer starter kit in the bathroom?”
Ah, fuck. All that bleach. The extra shower curtains. Now I felt sick. “What if he stabs her while we’re…while we’re…”
“While we’re flanking him. Don’t worry—Alaric’s got the gift of the gab. He’ll keep the lunatic talking for a few minutes. We just have to hurry up.”
“Flanking him? What are you talking about?”
As we slowly descended into the bowels of Bellsfield House South, Emmy laid out her plan, and I realised a harsh truth. Ryland Willis wasn’t the crazy one. No, my new boss took gold for that. And me? I was in silver medal position, stuck on the second step of the podium since I’d just signed my life over to her for what promised to be six long, long months.
CHAPTER 43 - BETHANY
WHAT WAS GOING on? Half an hour ago, Alaric had called to say they’d got a lead on Ryland, and everyone except me had headed into Bellsfield House South, but sinc
e then, it had been radio silence. Should I try calling? I didn’t want to disturb Alaric if he was in the middle of something important, but the waiting was unbearable.
For most of the day, I’d been hiding out in a car park on the far side of the play area, but as darkness fell, a group of youths had appeared, and they kept kicking a football against the side of the vehicle. On purpose, I suspected. So after Alaric’s call, I’d moved the SUV, slotting it in between a dumpster and what had once been a sofa before rain, vandals, and mould got to it. The position gave me a good view of the south tower, and for that, I’d put up with the rotten smell.
I was checking the phone—yet again—when movement caught my eye. Two blondes burst out of the door. Was that…was that Emmy? And Sky? They weren’t hanging around. The pair of them ran right past the front of the SUV, and before I had time to think what a bad, bad idea it was, I jumped out and sprinted after them. Something was wrong, wasn’t it?
“What happened?” I gasped as I burst into the lobby of the north tower behind them.
Emmy cursed under her breath, and I wasn’t sure whether her words were aimed at me or the out-of-order lift.
“Go back to the car.”
“Where’s Alaric?”
“Busy. The car, Bethany.”
She headed for the stairs, and I followed. She may have been rich and she may have been powerful, but I’d be damned if she was going to give me the brush-off like that. Not when a man I cared about was involved. Yes, even after my father’s warning, I still cared about Alaric. Against my best efforts, my heart had overruled my head and fallen a tiny bit in love with him, and if he was in trouble… I ran after Emmy and Sky.
For seventeen floors. Seventeen freaking floors. My heart threatened to give out somewhere around level fifteen, but if there was one thing I was good at, it was stairs. After Piers made a throwaway comment about my butt being saggy, pride had led me to spend hours climbing on the StairMaster, a hundred floors at the start of every gym session. I may have sounded like a dying walrus by the time we reached the top of the north tower, but I wasn’t far behind.
“Tell me what happened!” I choked out.
“Shitting hell. Are you incapable of following directions?”
Oh, that made me see red.
“Actually, I’m really, really good at it. I kowtowed to Piers for years which, if you think about it, was how we all ended up here in this delightful place. And do you know what? I’m sick of doing what I’m told.”
“Well, while you’re getting butt-hurt and wasting my time, your friend’s being held hostage, so how about you sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and let me get on with my job so she doesn’t end up dead instead?”
The anger blew out of me, and I slithered down the wall like a deflated beach ball. Gemma was a hostage?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but Emmy and Sky were already gone. Farther along the corridor, a door clanged shut, and I was alone again. And scared. Gemma was in danger, I still didn’t know where Alaric had gone, and I might have made things worse by interfering. I wasn’t cut out for this. I shouldn’t be working for a company like Sirius. Hell, I couldn’t even sell paintings without screwing up.
What now? More than anything, I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t just drive off with Alaric’s car, and I didn’t fancy walking to the Tube station on my own at night either. No, I needed to wait for Emmy to finish whatever she was doing, then apologise and beg for a ride back to civilisation. And tomorrow, I’d have to call my father, apologise profusely, and offer to rejoin the country club social committee.
If nothing else, at least I’d still have Chaucer, and as I hugged my knees against my chest in the gloom, I prayed that Gemma would be safe too.
CHAPTER 44 - SKY
“UH, YOU’RE GONNA die.”
Emmy had picked the lock on the door to the roof, and we’d crept across the moss-covered asphalt and hidden behind some sort of ventilation unit. From there, we had a prime view of the action, not to mention the large gap between the two towers.
The gap Emmy thought she was going to jump.
See? Crazy.
Ryland had his back to us, his arms wrapped around Gemma, and Alaric was still standing with Ravi by the access door. Not much seemed to have changed during our wild run up the stairs except for the fact that my heart was fast heading for cardiac arrest. Emmy wasn’t even out of breath. If we both survived until morning, I definitely planned to spend more time in the gym.
“Aren’t you just a fountain of positivity tonight?”
“Just sayin’.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“The gap’s, like, six metres? Seven? And the towers are the same height. It’s too far.”
“The wind’s with me.”
And gravity was against her. “It’s not enough.”
Every so often, a snippet of conversation drifted across, and it seemed to me that Ryland was unravelling by the minute. Gemma had gone quiet, and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or a bad sign.
“We all want to walk out of here,” Alaric said, his voice calm. “All you have to do is let Gemma go.”
“I want a helicopter!”
Yup, looney tunes.
“I can’t promise a helicopter, but I have a car downstairs.”
“You’ll come after me! I’d rather jump than go to jail!”
“Alaric had better have a tracker in his car,” Emmy muttered.
That sounded hopeful. “Does this mean you’re not jumping?”
“You’re right. It is too far.” I’d never heard Emmy sound so dejected before. “I’d need more height.”
“So should we cover the car? Or do you want me to stay here and keep you updated while you go downstairs?”
“Dammit, I don’t want Ryland getting off that roof. He’s insane. What if he takes another hostage on the way down?”
“Should we clear the way or something? Tell people to stay in their flats?”
“Ravi would need to stay on the roof with Gemma. That only leaves five of us to go after Ryland, and this estate is a maze.”
“Six. What about Beth?”
“If we let Beth ‘help,’ she’ll probably get taken hostage herself. She’s got no street smarts. Zero. But…” Emmy’s gaze settled on something behind me, and a sickening dread poured itself into my stomach. Her smile… It was cunning in a terrifying sort of way. “I have a better idea.”
“Does it involve calling a SWAT team and letting them deal with the problem?”
“SWAT? Depending who’s on duty, you’ll get either ‘Sit, Wait, And Talk’ or ‘Shoot Without Any Thinking.’”
On the other roof, Ryland took a step backwards. How Alaric remained calm, I had no idea. And where was his gun? I couldn’t see it in his hand anymore.
“So what’s your idea?”
Emmy turned me around and pointed at a wooden board, just visible in the darkness among the piles of junk dotted all over the roof. There were flapping bags of building materials, rusty satellite dishes, concrete blocks, even a manky old mattress.
“Simple. You’re gonna give me the extra height I need.”
She wanted a fucking ramp? Oh, hell no. “Maybe I could book you an appointment with a psychiatrist instead? I hear the room next to Lenny’s is free.”
“Sky, Sky… Always so negative.” She picked up one end of the board, careful to keep the ventilation unit between herself and Ryland in case he turned around. “Now, what’s the best way to hold this?”
I took the weight. The good news was that the board wasn’t rotten; the bad news was that it was bloody heavy. If I hooked it over my forearms, I wouldn’t be able to hold it with Emmy’s weight as well. If I knelt on my hands and knees with it on my back, there wouldn’t be enough height. I considered bending forward with my hands on my knees and balancing it on my arse, but that would give us a stability problem. Beside me, Emmy twisted and turned and judging by her sour expression, came to the same conclusion.
“What we need is another volunteer,” she said. “Then we could have one person each side, arms bridged.”
“How about that dude by the lift? He’s big.”
“Too far away.”
She jerked her head at the tower, and I saw Ryland had taken a few steps closer to the edge. The sound of Gemma’s sobs drifted across, and I wanted to take the board and smash it over his deranged head. Shame it wasn’t long enough.
We both looked at each other, and I knew Emmy was thinking the same thing. So near, yet so far. We had to do something, but what?
She spoke first. “Beth. She’s closer.”
“I thought you said she was a liability?”
“Mentally, she’s fragile, but she stayed with us all the way up those stairs, and she rides horses. Physically, she’s tough. See if she’s still there.”
Ryland took another step as I crept back to the stairwell. Whatever we did, it had to be fast.
CHAPTER 45 - ALARIC
RYLAND HAD LOST his damn mind. Alaric saw it in his eyes. He wouldn’t listen to reason, and at this stage, the only option left was to walk away, to let him go and try to catch him downstairs. The blood was running freely down Gemma’s throat now. One wrong move, and he’d nick an artery.
Alaric hated to lose. It felt like being back on the Seaduction, knowing the job was turning to shit but unable to do anything about it. At least he had Ravi at his back rather than a bloodthirsty agent with an itchy trigger finger—that was some small measure of comfort. But where the hell was Emmy? For five long minutes, he’d been asking himself that question, each time Ryland yelled out a crazy demand or took another step backwards.
Then he found out the answer, and suddenly, he didn’t want to know anymore.
What the fuck? Why was she on the other roof? And what was Beth doing there? She was meant to be locked in the car, out of trouble and definitely not carrying… What was that? Some sort of plank?
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react.
If he reacted, if Ryland turned to see what he was looking at, then Gemma was dead. Alaric glanced sideways. Next to him, Ravi had his eyes firmly fixed on Ryland too.
