It caused my feet to halt. Gunfire and Dawson. Fear spiraled out through my entire being. I couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not after everything. Not after barely making him mine.
“There’s a safe room,” she yelled over the noise as she continued to pull on my arm.
When we reached the door to the kitchen, Jada finally let me go. Inside, she opened what appeared to be a pantry to reveal a door and a keypad. She typed in a long number, and the door hissed open just as the back door slammed against the wall.
Ken’Ichi emerged from the darkness with a face clouded with rage and a gun in his hand. It took him a moment to register we were there, just like it took my body a moment to catch up with my brain. Once everything collided back together, I was the one doing the pulling as I tried to drag Jada into the hall leading to the front of the house. Ken’Ichi raised his gun in our direction, and his voice halted us.
“Where do you think you are going?” His voice was dripping with hatred, but there was no sense of panic in him. He seemed calmer than he should with the FBI on his tail.
“What did you do?” Jada asked, pretending she had no clue what was really happening. “Otosanis going to be furious.”
Ken’Ichi’s face grew even darker, if that were possible.
“You. You betrayed us. You and your friends.”
He moved closer, and Jada stepped in front of me, drawing me close up behind her.
“Inside,” he said, waving his gun in the direction of the safe room.
“Otosanwill kill you if you harm even a hair on my head.”
Ken’Ichi laughed. “I’m not losing everything because of you,Jada-chan.”
Jada was a queen. Strong and brilliant. And she held her chin up to him. I, on the other hand, was shaking like a leaf, trying to figure out how to get us out of this mess. My eyes darted to the archway, hoping to see a familiar body heading our way.
“I’ve told you not to call me that,” Jada said firmly. “After tonight,Otosanwill have no choice but to remove you from our lives.”
Ken’Ichi waved his gun. “We will see whoOyabunkeeps around. Move.”
Jada and I inched toward the safe room. Dread settled in. No one would be able to get in. No one would know where we were. How would Dawson find us? Where was he? Was he even okay? My heart continued to thud loudly, making all the sounds muffled and heightened at the same time. A weird dichotomy caused by fear and adrenaline.
Inside, the room was dark, barely lit by a blue glow coming from a set of monitors on the wall. Ken’Ichi shut the door behind him. On the screens, I could see the guests being corralled together into the main room as a S.W.A.T. team surrounded them. I scanned them, looking for Dawson’s tall body.
When I didn’t see him, my stomach clenched. God. I needed out of this room with Jada. I needed to go find Dawson, wrap my arms around him, and never let him go. But first I had to figure out a way to get Jada and me to safety. I turned my attention to the room we were in, searching for anything I could use as a weapon. That was laughable. What use would anything I put together be against a gun?
“They’ll come for us,” Jada told him, still putting her own body between me and Ken’Ichi, shielding me as everyone in my entire life had shielded me, protected me from the world, germs, and myself.
I wouldn’t let Jada die for me.
Ken’Ichi was examining the monitors, but he still pointed the gun in our direction.
“You’ve locked yourself into a corner,” Jada told him.
He turned to her with a smug lift of his lips. “A good safe room always has more than one way out.”
Jada stilled. Was he suggesting there was another way out of the room?
I searched the darkness in vain.
“Too bad you weren’t here when it was installed, or you would have known about it,” he laughed darkly. “But no matter, you see, your hero is coming to negotiate for your release.”
Dawson. My heart leaped. He was alive and unhurt. Relief flooded me. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before. Deadly. He stormed his way into the kitchen with a team behind him and his Glock raised. His tuxedo jacket had been exchanged for a bulletproof vest. He looked like the leader of every advanced team I’d ever seen on television. Muscled and sure. So handsome it hurt.
While Ken’Ichi and I had both been distracted by Dawson and the team’s arrival in the kitchen, Jada had not been. She moved before I could try and stop her. She lunged at Ken’Ichi and the gun, but he pulled it away from her with ease, smacking her across the face with it. She hit the ground on her hands and knees.
“Jada!” I started toward her, and Ken’Ichi waved the gun in my direction.
“No. Stay there, Miss Banner.Jada-channeeds to learn there are consequences for her actions. For her disrespect. For her betrayal of her family.”
