A commotion, then. A bang. And a scream.
Isobel. They’d found Isobel in the trash can.
“No, no, please!” she cried.
Leah could hear her thrashing and kicking. The can toppled with a plastic clatter.
Leah’s lungs squeezed, and her heart leapt.Oh God, oh God.
“Please! Stop it!”
Gabe shouted, “Let go of her!”
She heard him moving, shoving a chair, trying to rush to her aid.
Then a gunshot.
Isobel screamed.
Gabe let out a grunt of pain.
Black spots crowded Leah’s vision.Oh God, oh God.
She’d never gone for those shooting lessons; didn’t have her own weapon. She had some Mace in her purse, but that was back at her desk. She had nothing, was only small, and non-threatening, and trapped here in a nightmare, the fire alarm cycling again and again.
But she had to do something. Couldn’t crouch here and hide anymore.
What would Ava do? What would Maggie do?
Old ladies were old ladies not just because they slept with bikers – bikers had chosen them, and they’d chosen bikers, because they were tough enough to handle that life.
She let her hand drop. Took a breath. And crawled out from under the table.
~*~
Carter stepped over the slumped body of a young man in the hallway just past the stairwell. He didn’t know if he was dead or alive, or his friends, either, but he didn’t have time for that. They’d just heard a gunshot, and a door stood open partway down the hall. Tenny and Reese slipped through it, and Carter followed, heart in his throat, hands sweating inside his gloves, on the stock of the rifle.
It took him a moment to make sense of the tableau that greeted them. When he realized what was happening, his world narrowed down to one point: Leah’s face.
Her chin trembling, her eyes shiny, but her voice steady. Her empty hands held up, palms presented to the three men in black who were squared off from her.
One of them held onto a young woman in a blue dress; she was shivering and crying.
A young man in a suit lay sprawled across the carpet, groaning, hand clutching a wound in his thigh that was rapidly bleeding all over the place.
“Please,” Leah was saying. “We’re unarmed. We just wanted to leave the building. We don’t have any money. Please.” Her throat jumped as she swallowed. Her gaze shifted toward him, and widened – with fear, he realized. She thought there were now six goons in the room with them; couldn’t recognize him behind a helmet and goggles.
“If you want a hostage,” she said, “take me. I’ll go quietly.”
Oh, baby. His chest hurt, sharp pain, driving the breath from his lungs.No.
“But please leave them alone. Please get some help for Gabe – I’m afraid he’s gonna – gonna bleed to death.”
“Shut up,” one of the men barked, and took a step toward her.
Carter lowered the rifle, settled his sights, and shot him in the back of the neck, right between his helmet and his vest collar.
Blood sprayed forward, a thick gout like a fountain, and he staggered forward; hit his knees, fell face-first on the floor, twitching.
