alert but it was my gut that twisted almost painfully when the man smiled at me. His full lips revealed the only flaw that I had yet to find. One slightly crooked front tooth. Then there was his jawline which was covered in a healthy dose of scruff that I could practically feel scraping along my side as he nuzzled my…
That was as far as my randy thoughts got because the man chose that moment to reach into his jacket and pull a gun from it. There wasn't even a modicum of hesitation on his part when he aimed it directly at me.
I'd always had this strange thought that when I died, it would somehow be different for me than what other people had always claimed… that they saw their lives flash in front of their eyes in those last few moments. I'd just assumed that the very last thing I'd have any interest in thinking about would've been my past, but that was exactly what happened when my eyes connected with the barrel of the weapon. Every pitiful moment, every harsh failure, every potent triumph… they were all there.
It was too much and too little all at once.
I felt cheated.
Cheated by the shitty life I'd been handed but even more cheated that I wouldn't get to see how it would turn out.
"Do I have your attention now, Mr. Archer?" the man asked as he kept the gun trained on me.
I heard Simon crying behind me. I’d completely forgotten about his presence until that very moment. My mind spun with the layout of the office. I couldn't tell exactly where Simon was, but I knew I could give him a shot at escape if I could just keep the gunman distracted. My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest as I took a slow but very deliberate step to my right. I could only hope the move would shield Simon from any bullets. Hopefully the kid would be smart enough to make a run for my office and lock himself inside the bathroom when the maniac in front of me finally took his shot.
"Yes," I said. "How can I help you, Mr. Falkov?" I asked as calmly as I could. I held my hands out in an effort to make myself a bigger target.
The man's eyes moved seamlessly between me and what I could only assume was Simon behind me. I couldn't read the expression in the stranger's gaze, though. I would've expected his eyes to be either angry or dead, not somewhere in between. My entire life had been about reading people, reading situations, but the man in front of me… I couldn't read him. Not even to save my life. And if I couldn’t read him, I couldn’t adapt to him. I almost choked on the fear and helplessness that consumed me.
"You have four security cameras in this room alone. One over each of my shoulders and one over each of yours," the man announced. I'd hoped he hadn’t noticed them because I'd been planning to use that information to my advantage. I could bluff with the best of them, but when he continued with, "None of which do you any good if they are all turned off," my stomach fell out.
Fuck.
How the hell could he have known that? The entire building was wired with cameras, but I'd insisted that the ones in my office suite be turned off because they'd made me feel penned in.
"Just like the camera in your office and over your assistant’s desk."
I wasn't sure if he was actually expecting an answer or not. The fact that he wasn't pulling the trigger was setting off warning bells in my head. I still had his business card clutched in my hand, but I wasn't willing to risk my or Simon’s safety on a hunch.
"The security guards make rounds every hour. Are you aware of that, Mr. Archer?" Again, he didn't wait for an answer. "Guards don't do you much good if there's a whole hour between the time they check on you. And let's say you had guards who actually did their job, we'd still have another fifty-six minutes of uninterrupted time before they walked through that door again." He motioned over his shoulder toward the door that led out of the suite.
"You've got a check-in desk downstairs which actually does check ID, but it is woefully understaffed. That or I missed the memo where a MetroCard is considered an