Page 86 of Inferno

He dragged her into the elevator.

“You aren’t going to get away with this,” Samantha warned. She just had to figure out how to request backup on Julio’sphone, behind her back, with a gun in her face. “Someone will figure out what you did.”

Dominic’s face twisted into a grimace. “No one has ever known.” He laughed. “It got too easy, setting fires. I needed a new challenge.”

“Sylvana.”

“Worth imitating, learning from.” The elevator rose. “And then I surpassed him. I became greater than the master, and now I will complete my work and no one will mistake it for anything other than me. Doing what I was born to do.”

“Destroy.” She stared at him, her mind flinging around solutions like a pinball machine, unable to settle on one thing.

“Ascend.”

And she was supposed to go with him?

The elevator stopped on the top floor. Doors slid open, and he shoved her into the hall.

Samantha slid the phone out because she had to try. She couldn’tnottry—or there would be no solution. No help. No backup.

Lord…

She didn’t even know what to ask for. But God knew. He would show up, in those small ways she’d been missing. Directing people. Bringing her family together—her brothers and sisters who bled blue. And the fire captain she’d loved since middle school. Her partner. People she’d never met but had heard stories about, and they’d shown up to find her.

As if she was worth showing up for.

She typed the pin code without looking. At the end of the hall, she looked down. Quick enough to see she’d unlocked the phone. Green button.Call Romeo.That wasn’t going to work. Frayer was an option—she could call his chief.

Samantha lifted her gaze on where they were going and kept the phone out of sight. Maybe Dominic didn’t care enough to seewhat she was doing, too fixated on his task. Whatever plan he had in place.

She stumbled on the carpet toward a fire door at the end, marked ROOF.

He nodded. “Through there.”

At the same time she hit the handle, she looked down at the contacts list and saw ALVAREZ, R. Samantha hit the Call button and slid the phone down her front, praying it would remain in her hand out of sight. “Where are we going?”

There was no way they’d be able to hear her voice through the phone line.

But they might be able to hear Dominic’s.

“Up.” His voice echoed through the stairwell.

“Why do we need to be on the roof?”

“You’ll see.”

She reached the top of the stairwell.

“Faster now.”

Samantha stumbled out into open air, filled with smoke. A plane flew overhead, followed by a helicopter carrying a water container. Probably a good idea to call in people who dealt with huge fires in a situation like this where she could barely breathe. Multiple buildings were ablaze.

The whole thing was overwhelming.

She wanted to lie down and curl up into a ball until it was over.

But at the same time, she had their suspect right behind her.

“The bank isn’t affected by the fire.” Samantha tried to speak loudly enough for whoever was on the line to hear. Had Romeo answered and not hung up? She had no idea. “What are we doing on the roof, Dominic?” They needed as much information as possible if they were going to rescue her and stop him.

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