exit,” Jamie announced, as if that wasn’t a big deal. “The most lightly guarded one is the east stairwell. They have four on the ground. We can take ’em.”
The others didn’t answer as they finished taking off their rappel gear. When Tyler started to remove my harness, I jumped, but there was no time for him to try to calm me, comfort me. The others were already walking out the door, guns cocked and at the ready.
Ty pushed me forward, remaining at my back. We rushed down the hallway. My bare feet helped me stay quiet, but my dress still made an obscene amount of noise, the layers of fabric rustling with every step.
We passed the front desk of whatever business had their offices on this floor and exited through the massive glass doors. There were elevators on our left, another set of giant glass doors on the opposite side, and a corridor with an emergency exit sign above it on our right.
Just as the doors swung closed behind me, several masked men emerged from the corridor, guns raised.
For a split second, everyone froze.
Then one of the men spoke. “Just hand her over, and no one has to die.”
I took an involuntary step back. It didn’t take a genius to figure out these were Variant Valor dickheads—Davis’s thugs.
Alec laughed, a low, menacing sound. “If you want her, you’ll have to kill us first.”
As if to prove Alec’s point, Tyler inched forward, blocking me from their view.
I opened my mouth—to stubbornly declare I’d die too before I was taken—but I never got the chance.
A gun went off. I had no idea whose, but it must’ve been one of the ones pointed at us, because the door behind me shattered. I hunched my shoulders and covered my head with my hands. Glass shards showered over me, getting stuck in my hair and slicing into my exposed back.
Tyler fired, his precise aim taking out one of the thugs before all the glass had even fallen to the tiled floor.
Everyone started shooting, the sound deafening. The glass behind the assailants exploded too, littering the floor with more glittery particles.
More assailants poured out of the corridor and the office on the opposite side of the building, but at the same time, Melior Group agents stepped off the elevators and appeared behind us too. Even people in formal wear, the important dignitaries from the party, were there—diamonds and tuxedos mixing with the bullets and blood.
After the initial surge of gunfire, both sides took cover—in doorways, in offices, behind desks and chairs.
Alec was at the front of our group. Once the reinforcements arrived, he gestured to Jamie and Ty. They closed in, and Alec roughly pushed me back the way we’d come.
My mind felt slow, as if I were wading through syrup. I didn’t even turn around when Alec started nudging me; I just walked backward, flinching at the shattered glass under my bare feet.
After a moment, Alec simply swept me up with one arm and carried me the remaining few steps. He set me down behind the reception counter, and Tyler tugged me down into a crouch beside him.
Alec remained standing. When I looked up, he was looking down, a somewhat confused expression on his face. Time seemed to slow as he pressed a hand to his chest, then pulled it away and stared at it.
He grabbed the edge of the desk with the same hand, but it slid right off, leaving a trail of red on the white surface.
My eyes widened.
My heart stopped.
My throat constricted, cutting off my air.
Alec dropped to his knees as his gun slipped from his grip. The confused expression melted away, replaced by something else, something harder.
Ty, Jamie, and a few other people who’d taken cover behind the reception desk were focused fully on fighting off the assailants. Gunshots and shouts echoed all around me.
None of them had noticed yet. None of them had seen the blood. So much blood. It oozed between the fingers of the hand Alec pressed to his chest.
“NO!” My guttural scream immediately drew everyone’s attention. My hands became a blur as they flew to his neck, then his shoulders, then the bloody, slick hand at his chest.
Together, Tyler and I lowered Alec to the ground.
As another person came to help, my mind supplied a list of all the vital organs in the area he was shot—lungs, small intestines, heart . . . So many ways to die.
“There’s no exit wound,” someone declared from his other side.