Page 119 of Lethal Alliance

“Locking the fucking place down. Wiping the blood off. They came at us hard.”

Bryce’s phone rings out. Anton raises his eyebrows at me, and I shake my head. This isn’t right, and we both know it. He depresses the button again. “We’ll wait in here until we get word from Roman.”

There’s a moment’s silence, then the intercom sounds again. “That might be difficult.” The man’s voice sounds heavy. “The news out of Miami isn’t good, I’m afraid.”

My heart lurches, then settles again.

It’s a line. A story. He just wants you to open the door.

But despite what I tell myself, nothing can stop the icy chill stealing through my body, nor take away the visible fear in Rosa’s face.

Roman, riddled with bullet holes, eyes wide open.

Ofelia and Masha, strapped to Orlov’s table, knives carving into their flesh.

I shudder and press Roman’s number on my phone.

“What happened in Miami?” Anton asks through the intercom. He’s been joined by the other guard, Karel, who has his gun trained on the door.

The disembodied voice comes again. “Mak lost comms with Roman’s team just after they went through the gate. We got here minutes later, just in time to meet an attack force trying to get in. It’s all turned to hell. Mak wants to move you before the attackers send another team.”

Roman’s phone rings out. Then again, it would, if he’s in the middle of a battle. I try to stifle my rising panic.

I look at Anton. “Call Mak.”

He shakes his head. “Bryce has that number.”

I should have made sure I had it too.

In hindsight, it’s a massive error.

Anton presses the intercom again. “My orders are to wait. So we’ll wait.”

“We don’t have time for this.” The man’s tone sharpens. “Open the door, or Mak will put a bullet through you himself.”

“I don’t answer to Mak,” says Anton curtly. “I answer to Bryce and to Roman Stevanovsky. Until I get word from either of them, in person, this door stays closed.”

“Then you’ll likely fucking die in there. Bryce is leaking the red stuff everywhere, and going from what I hear, Stevanovsky has walked into a shit storm in Miami. If you want to stay alive, then I suggest you open this door right now.”

We don’t bother answering that one. Whoever is standing outside that door isn’t a friend.

“This safe room can take a hell of a lot,” Anton says to me, but his grim face doesn’t reassure me at all. “It’s the best place for us, at least for now.”

I nod. “I agree. Let’s keep trying every number we can think of.”

But before I can make another call, the intercom crackles to life again.

“Miss Petrovsky.”

I freeze.

I know that voice.

“You seem to have learned a little more caution since we last met. Then again, you have learned from the best, haven’t you?”

I close my eyes. For a brief moment, I’m strapped to the table again, Vilnus’s knife on my skin. The man with the cold, dead eyes is standing over me, talking to Vilnus.“What we need is the man who built that vault, but you’ve already killed him, Vilnus, haven’t you? So now we have to find someone who knows what he does...”

Oh, God.

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