Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,100

to my feet. My thighs are screaming because the tape keeps me from straightening up. I start inching along, limping toward the bedroom, Aaron a heavy, destabilizing weight.

“You’re strong, Aunt Posy,” he says.

I am strong, damn it. Strong enough to get to that panic button. “Work on your hands,” I grunt. “Can you get them free?” I wriggle one hand against the other one. I’m not sure there’s enough room to get free.

But the panic button is only twenty feet away. Dragging us into the bedroom seems to take forever, but it’s probably less than a minute. I can’t think about the basement or Gunnar or those men. Just the button. It’s on the bedside table. When I get there, I lean heavily against the table and try to figure out how to push it.

“See that button?” I wheeze, still trying to get my hand out of the zip tie. “Let’s see who can press it first.”

“I can!” Aaron says. “The tape doesn’t cover my fingers. Get me closer.”

That’s when I finally manage to wrench my hand out of the restraints.

Aaron’s finger and mine pile onto the button at exactly the same moment.

“It’s a tie!” he says happily.

Suddenly, there’s a soft red glow in the darkness as the button does its thing. For two seconds, I’m filled with relief.

Then I hear a gunshot. And Aaron bursts into tears.

31

Gunnar

It's pitch dark in the hundred-year-old staircase of Posy’s building, so I’m using the flashlight function on my watch to illuminate the shadowy stairs. I ease past the apartments on the third and second floors, listening. But all is quiet.

Meanwhile, my watch is pinging with error messages from the security equipment we installed in the pie shop. Loss of power Camera One. Loss of power Camera Two, and so on. If the power is out in the bakery, that means it wasn't just a circuit breaker or two that was flipped.

Someone's cut power to the entire building. I take a second to tap out a message on my watch. Power out in Posy’s building. I don’t like it. Taking a look in the basement.

I suppose I could wait for backup. But there’s a five-year-old kid who needs his nightlight. And It’s probably Saroya making trouble with the circuit-breakers.

It gets brighter near the first floor, as the soft glow of the lights from Prince Street filters in through the front window. I haven’t heard the front door open or close these past few minutes. And I don’t see anyone. Although I can’t see the basement door until I've reached the main level.

As I step off the last tread into the vestibule, I turn slowly to face the rear of the building, where the basement door is. But someone is standing there in the shadows.

“Who's there?” I call in a nonthreatening voice.

Two things happen at once. The shadowed person in front of me holds up a high wattage light, blinding me. And the front door wrenches open behind me.

I go for the gun in my waistband holster, getting my hand on the revolver, but I don’t shoot, because I haven’t identified the threat.

There are moments in everyone’s life when split-second decisions will matter. And this is one of them. By the time I turn my head to see who’s coming through the door, it’s too late. The goon behind me is already attaching his iron hands to my elbows, yanking my arms back into a vice grip. His partner advances toward me with that brutal light held high in the air like a weapon.

It’s not Saroya.

I can’t raise my arms or move my body. But I can angle my hand toward the floor behind me, and fire off a single, deafening round.

The goon behind me screams, and his buddy kicks the gun out of my hand a split second later. I wrench out of his grasp and pinball off the wall to try to break toward the door.

But it’s no good. The guy whose foot I shot has not given up. He blocks my path, and his buddy sweeps my feet out from under me. And—worse—the pounding of feet coming down the stairs accompanied by whispered curses tells me the rest of the bad news.

There are four of these guys.

“Don't fucking twitch, or I’ll blow off your head right here,” pants another large man with a gun as he leaps down the last stairs and into the vestibule. “Your girlfriend will have to clean it up.”

I go perfectly still. But I'm rapidly forming several conclusions.