calming breath and then creak the bathroom door open. Adrian is standing in my line of sight, which I have no doubt is intentional. He’s also talking to Alejandro, but I can’t make out what’s being said. Well not until he raises his voice, and pokes at Alejandro’s chest. I know it’s Alejandro’s chest because the beast steps into Adrian, and holy wow, he makes Adrian, who is not small, look tiny. If Adrian notices he doesn’t act like it. “You pervert. You’re a pervert hanging out at the women’s bathroom.” Then even louder, he shouts, “Security! Security!”
Adrian shoves him and the beast actually stumbles backward, out of my view. There are more voices now, and I can feel the chaotic energy, even if I can’t see anymore. I open the door and when I find several men in suits standing with Adrian, all of them surrounding Alejandro, my heart leaps, but I move , quickly darting to the right to run for the stairwell.
“Hey! Stop right there, Candace!”
Oh, God. It’s Alejandro. I grab the doorknob to the exit, and it won’t open. I tug again. Still, it won’t open. I glance right and Alejandro is running at me. Adrian tackles him and shouts, “Run!” I run, down another hallway and thank God, there is another exit sign. Please let the door open. Please let it open. It does. It opens. Relief floods my adrenaline-laced system and I all but fall flat-faced inside the stairwell, but I catch the railing. We aren’t high up and I start running down the stairs. I’ve just turned the corner when I stop dead at the sight of a man sitting on the ground on the next level I must pass. And not just any man. It’s Rick’s father.
“Doctor Savage?”
He breathes out and then looks up at me, attempting a smile. “Candace, dear.”
I hurry down the steps to kneel beside him. “Doctor Savage, what are you doing?”
“My house is burning down. I’m supposed to meet the fire trucks there now.”
My eyes go wide. “Your house is burning down?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
Blood flushes my face and heats my neck. My mind races with all the ways this might be tied to Tag, and my fear for his life is immediate. “Come with me.” I stand back up and grab his hand. “Now.”
“I’ve been drinking. I can’t get up.”
“Get up now or you might die. Any moment now a man who wants to kill me, and I suspect you, will walk into this stairwell. Get up—now!”
“No,” he says. “No. I’m not getting up. If they want to kill me, they can kill me.”
“Candace!”
At the sound of Smith’s voice, I call back. “I’m here.”
“Get your ass down to me, now!”
I tug on Dr. Savage’s hand. He jerks it back. “Go. I’m fine.”
“Please—”
“Candace!”
I turn and Smith is standing behind me. “What the hell?” he demands, looking between me and Rick’s father.
“He was just sitting here,” I explain. “He says he’s drunk. He says his house is burning down. I don’t want to leave him. What if that monster comes after him?”
“Don’t be a fool, little girl!” Rick’s father shouts at me. “Tag needs me. He doesn’t need you or my son. Go the fuck away.”
“He burned down your house.”
“He didn’t burn down my house. I did!”
“What?”
Smith catches my arm. “Savage needs to hear from you now and know that you’re safe and right now you are not. It’s life or death. I’ll send a man for him.”
I’m torn. This man is Rick’s father, but Rick himself and my father are in danger. “Let’s go.”
Smith takes my hand and guides me the rest of the way down the stairs. We exit to a hallway somewhere on the lower level and then exit to a side door. A white truck waits for us there and Smith opens the passenger door.
I climb inside and I don’t know how Adrian is here, but he is and he hands me his phone. “My father?”
“Nothing yet. Talk to Savage.”
But I don’t talk to Savage. I turn to Smith. “Rick’s father—”
“I already sent a message to one of our men to get him. Now talk to Savage. He won’t kill Tag until he hears your voice.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Savage
I’m not even holding the gun on Tag. He’s back to sitting in his chair, in the living room of his rental. I’m in the chair across from his chair, elbows on my knees, that baseball hat I’d put on earlier on the table. The gun is on