Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,5

properly inside them.

I slipped down a side alley to the right of the building, using the dark spots between streetlamps to creep closer to the research centre in the shadows.

The place was well guarded but only against people who didn't know what they were doing. I had no intention of heading in via the front door where the guards were waiting. I wasn’t a fucking amateur. I’d been trained in the art of criminal behaviour since I was a boy and I was a damn good study.

I crept quickly down the narrow alley, inhaling the scent of smoke on the air and glancing up at a vent which was churning it out from the third floor. The scent was slightly clinical, and I frowned towards the rising smoke for a moment before continuing on with the plan.

I had no time to hesitate, no moments to spare. My girl was inside this building. I could feel it in the depths of my darkened soul. My heart was thumping to a deep and sultry rhythm which could only be in answer to hers. She was close. She had to be.

I paused in the shadows as I looked up at the smooth wall beside me, spotting the air conditioning vent just where Saint had said it would be after he’d managed to get his hands on the blueprints to this place. Two floors up and bolted down as tight as fuck. Not that that would stop me.

When I was fourteen, my uncle Niall had started taking me with him when he went on jobs that required a bit of stealth. That fucker was the grand master of breaking and entering. He even had a reputation in some circles which claimed he could walk through walls. Everyone knew if Niall O'Brien wanted you dead, there was no escape. You'd wake up in the night with him looming over your bed - a garrotte or axe or sledgehammer in hand depending on his mood - and you'd leave this life bloody and screaming for a mercy which would never come.

Suffice to say, after having a teacher like him, I could break into this place no bother.

"The guards should be finishing up their patrol in seventeen seconds," Saint's voice informed me via the speaker in my ear.

"Most people don’t actually stick to your anal as fuck routines, you know," Blake muttered over the comm too and I almost smirked as Saint bit back at him. Almost. But there wasn't enough good left in me for smiles while my girl was gone.

It took a bit of doing to scramble up to the vent, but I made quick work of breaking in once I was there.

I grunted as I hauled myself into the shaft, my shoulders brushing up against the cool metal as I forced my broad frame into the tight space.

"I'm in," I murmured, pushing my tools back into my pocket and starting to wriggle forward on my stomach.

"No theatrics," Saint growled, a command more than a warning and I growled right back at him like the animal I was.

"Stick to the research part of this plan," I muttered. "And leave the heavy lifting to the career criminal."

"There's a delivery truck approaching the rear entrance," Monroe interrupted us and I could practically see his stern teacher face as his jaw ticked over our bickering.

I tuned them out as the others kept watch on the building, all of them moving towards the emergency escape as they waited for me.

I didn't have to take the vents very far, pausing at the first grate which looked down into one of the white corridors inside the building. The lights were low due to the late hour, but the place wouldn't be entirely deserted even in the dead of night. They had workers here around the clock, desperately trying to create the vaccine the world was waiting for. And we had a damn good idea on what - or rather who - they were using to create it.

But fuck that. Fuck the world if the price of saving it was her. She was worth more than every other fucker on this miserable planet and I wasn't ever going to apologise for believing that. She was it for me. It might have been selfish and greedy, but I didn't care because my love for her was those things and more. If the creation of this vaccine required a sacrifice, then let it be anyone at all besides her. Let it be everyone besides