Page 129 of Prodigal Son

The slipped out on the next landing, and followed the oh-so-helpful directories toward the proper wing. They passed a bank of elevators, and were met by glass walls and doors, etched with the Plaza logo, a suited security guard standing in front of it, arms folded.

“Hey,” he said, when he spotted them, and reached for his gun.

Too slow. Walsh shot him in the head and kept going, pushing through the glass doors now spotted with blood and brain matter.

“Maybe wait out here,” Mercy told Ian.

The dealer checked his watch, and grinned. “Oh no, I’m having fun. And besides. The cavalry should be arriving in about three…two…one…”

~*~

“What sort of agreement?” Phillip asked, but deep down, he already knew.

Morris’s smile said he could read his thoughts. “From what we’ve been able to gather, none of the nine of you are all that close with your father. The younger girl is the only one who even bears his chosen last name. Subject Nine is all we want. And then you can all walk away from this unscathed.”

“All of us. You’ll let us just walk.”

“Yes, of course. I’d like to offer you time to think it over, but I’m afraid that isn’t possible. This is a one-time offer. And, you should know” – his smile widened – “we’ve already taken custody of your other sister. The one who’s been slipping around with that designer woman, thinking they’re so clever.”

Raven.

Phillip swallowed, and let his gaze stray to the windows again. Still just darkness, and landscaping, and rain falling softly over all of it.

“What–” he started.

One of the security guards touched his ear – a sharp rustle of his jacket – and then leaned in to whisper something in Morris’s ear. Phillip couldn’t hear the words, but he could hear the man’s tone – fast and worried.

“Something wrong?” Phillip asked.

No one answered him.

Another guard got a notification in his ear piece, and joined the conversation.

Phillip traded glances with his brothers.

And then the windows shattered.

~*~

Raven knelt on the carpet, hands bound in front of her, in the place where she’d been shoved down and told to stay like a dog. Too furious to be properly frightened.

Three thugs had apprehended her and Ryan, and now they waited, while the bastards snapped orders into radios and decided their fate. There was a very good chance she’d be killed, she knew, but all she could feel now was fury. How dare they manhandle her? How dare–

“What?” one of them snapped, and looked toward the door of the office where they were being held.

Raven became aware of a swelling wall of sound from down the corridor; distant, but loud enough to register. A rising tide of mixed shouts, screams, and thundering feet.

The guard stepped to the door – she heard a soft sound, a strange one – and then he fell over, boneless. Landed hard on his side without even attempting to catch himself. Red stain blooming across his white shirt. Dead.

A gun came in through the open door; its suppresser proved what the sound had been: a muffled shot. Then an arm, then a man, hollow-eyed, with buzzed hair, but a wide grin.

“Hands up, mate,” he said, his cockney accent so think it was barely understandable.

The guard did in fact put his hands up.

The gunman turned his grin on Raven and Ryan. “Hullo, ladies. What say we get out of here?”

~*~

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