Page 96 of Hell to Pay

“We’re getting the fuck out of here,” Rafe said, fastening his harness and attaching the rappelling rope to the edge of the roof.

She glanced hurriedly over the edge. “But… it’s three stories down!”

“Don’t worry,” Rafe said. “You’ll be with me. This is a piece of cake.”

Jude looked at me and I realized he already had his harness on while I still had mine in my hand.

“What the fuck are you doing, Nolan?” He hurried toward me and pulled the harness over my head, then fastened the buckles like I was a little kid who needed help with his winter coat.

“I don’t…” My head was buzzing louder, darkness creeping into the periphery of my vision. “I don’t feel well.”

And everything went dark.

62

RAFE

I watchedNolan collapse on the roof in slow motion. “What thefuck?”

Jude rushed toward him. “He didn’t take his meds.”

“Meds?” There was panic in Lilah’s eyes.

Jude picked up Nolan and moved to the edge of the roof. “I’ve got him.”

He’d just strapped Nolan to his body when the door from the staircase flew open.

The guards rushed onto the roof, guns drawn.

But they weren’t alone.

There was a man with them, cloaked but unmasked. A man with a hard face and harder eyes, his hair still cut high and tight.

Sandoval.

I grabbed Lilah and pulled her close against my body.

“You’re making a mistake, Maddox,” Sandoval said.

The guards were pointing their guns at us, but Sandoval was obviously in charge, and they weren’t about to shoot while he was talking.

“And you’ve already made one,” I said.

“We’ll come for you,” Sandoval said. “And we won’t stop coming.”

I held his gaze. “I’ll be waiting.”

Then I pushed off the roof, Lilah clinging to my neck, her legs wrapped around my waist as we descended, Jude next to me with Nolan, unconscious and strapped to Jude’s chest.

My feet hit the house’s stone facade halfway down. I kicked off and slid further down the rappelling rope, then dropped to the ground with a thud.

Jude was a second behind me. We’d barely unclipped our harnesses from the rope when gunfire peppered the ground around us, the guards firing their weapons from the roof.

Jude threw Nolan over his shoulder as I grabbed Lilah’s hand and pulled her toward the trees beyond the landscaped clearing around the house.

Bullets tore up the grass around us. I held my breath, half expecting one of us to fall. But it was dark and we were moving targets, the guards clearly not snipers trained for these conditions.

We cleared the tree line in one piece and dove into the forest surrounding the house. I didn’t need a compass to know where we were going, and I ran for the Jeep we’d hidden in the woods, pulling Lilah behind me, listening for the sound of the guards giving chase.

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