Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,85
door flickers out like a premonition plunging me the rest of the way into darkness. Years of captivity removed any fear of the dark. Monsters hide much easier in plain sight.
The movement inside the reception area snags my attention. I creep closer, using the darkness as long as I can. I press myself against the rotted wood and peer inside.
A greasy man stands behind a desk off to the far right, hands flat on the top. I can’t tell from here if he’s armed or has his hands placed in surrender. A gun lies discarded on the ground by the desk. Another has a gun pointed at the back of Alex’s head execution-style. His hands are raised, laced behind his hair, forced to his knees by a coward. Their backs are both to the door, though there appears to be an exit behind the desk. I swallow the sickness and force myself to keep looking even though I want to squeeze them and will the nightmare away.
Muted voices float outside, an abrasiveness to their tone. I’m running out of time. Nothing is stopping this man from putting a bullet in Alex’s head.
My element of surprise is all I have, and recklessness is my armor. The push sign on the door tells me exactly what to do. I throw my body against it and send it careening open. Those muted voices turn to shouts as I crouch, spin, and grip the stun gun in my hand. The man on Alex turns to the commotion, and I jump toward him. Jamming my weapon into his neck, I press the switch, and then the button as Elias instructed. The air crackles with electricity, and he screams as he drops to the ground, his gun sliding across the floor.
Alex doesn’t wait for his opportunity and dives toward the discarded weapon. The other man moves as well, his pockmarked face twisting into an evil sneer as he lifts his own weapon and aims it at me. I dive to the left as a bullet whizzes past my arm and shatters the window of the door. A rainfall of glass shards dances along the floor behind me.
The man chose wrong. One pop later and he’s slumped behind the desk with a bullet in his chest.
Another pop and the man I tased stops moving.
“Fucking hell. What in the fuck are you doin’ here?” Alex growls dangerously, gun still raised, shoulders rising in panted breaths as he looks across the expanse into my eyes.
Adrenaline leeches the energy from my muscles, and I sway on my feet.
“I’m a distraction,” I offer weakly.
Angry heated eyes hold mine. “Dammit, baby. Damn.” His arm lowers fractionally inch by inch as the requisite to fight leaches free.
I survey the carnage surrounding us. “We should go. Did you get her?”
“Come out, girl,” he calls, and a small redhead agreeably crawls out from beneath a table. She’s the younger image of her sister with fewer ghosts behind her eyes. If I had to guess, Clarissa probably exchanged mind, body, and soul to protect her as much as she could.
She walks up to me, and I wrap an arm around her bony shoulders, holding her close.
“Is my sister with you?”
“She is, and she’s eager to see you.” I offer a fragile smile.
We start out the door, but Alex doesn’t follow. I stop us and wait, watching as he cleans the gun and places it back near the dead guy’s hand. Then he plucks his own weapon from the ground near the reception desk and holsters it.
My eyes must hold questions because he says, “Hoping nobody gives a rat’s ass about these two, but this way it looks like they shot each other.” He cups his ear. “Yeah, send ’em.”
“Richard?” I guess who he spoke to.
“He’s sending in a squad.”
Our speed increases as we hoof it across the lot back to the vehicles across the street.
“What do we do now?”
The grim line of his mouth sets my spine straight.
“We get the fuck out of here and let Richard handle it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sin
I look over the real estate plans spread across the counter in the kitchen, Shelby tucked close beneath my arm. The smell of her apple shampoo tickles my nose.
“I think it’ll work perfectly,” she says and wraps her arm around my waist. She tips her chin to look me in the eye. “What do you think?”
“If it’s what you want, I’ll make the call.” It’s the most honest answer I can say. I’d give her the damn