Page 160 of The Wild Charge

“Keep them there. We’ll leave soon; have the cars brought around.” The last he called over his shoulder as he and Abe headed for the staircase.

He paused, briefly, on his way up, attention caught by the employee Hunter had shot. She’d collapsed with the exit wound down against the floor, so that, save the neat hole in her temple, and the blood that had puddled down three stairs, she looked alive, still. Eyes open, lips parted, face smooth with shock.

He'd shot her so he could drop her; shot her so he wouldn’t have to slow himself down by dragging her along, once her usefulness had ended.

That wasn’t why he’d shot Reese.

He skipped up the rest of the stairs three at a time; Abe cursed and huffed to keep up with him.

He heard the blubbering and begging long before he rounded the bend in the hall and found some dumbass kid backed up against the wall, one of Toly’s knives winking at his throat. Cassandra stood behind Toly, arms banded tight around her middle, Devin’s arm looped around her shoulders.

“Friend of yours?” Fox asked, head tilting toward the boy.

Cassandra’s eyes were wet, but her chin was set at a stubborn angle that reminded him a lot of Raven. “No,” she said, emphatically.

“Please,” the boy was crying, snot-nosed, tears pouring down his cheeks. “P-please, I don’t – my dad’s really rich – he’ll pay you! Please don’t kill me, please,please–”

The knife tilted in Toly’s hand, overhead lights glinting down its length. “Shut up,” he snapped. He glanced over his shoulder at Fox, cold-eyed and serious. “This is the one. The boy who set all this up.”

“Set…set what up? Oh my God, I didn’t–”

Toly hissed, “Shut your fucking mouth,” in Russian, and the boy gasped. “Oh my God, oh my God, ohmygod…”

Fox strode forward and gripped the boy’s jaw in one hand, smushing his lips together and turning his babbling into a garbled wheeze. “Hey. Dipshit. Who’s your dad?”

His eyes were rolling wildly. He tried to respond, but the way Fox was squishing his cheeks, the words were unintelligible.

“You know what? I don’t care. Lose the knife,” he said to Toly, who gave him a questioning look before he pulled it back. Fox tightened his grip, pulled the boy forward by his face – and then slammed his head back against the wall. His eyes rolled back, and Fox caught him as he went limp.

“Alright,” he said, as Toly rushed to help catch the boy. “We’re taking him, and we’re getting the hell out of here.”

~*~

Tenny did two things when he climbed into the back seat of the Suburban: pulled his wig off and raked his left hand through his hair. And wiped his right hand, the one he’d used to shake hands with Waverly there at the end, down the leg of his slacks with a silent apology to Ian. “My God, who has hands that sweaty?”

One of his security guards climbed into the front seat, and it was only then that Tenny realized his driver, Topino, had a cellphone pressed to his ear. He twisted around in his seat and made eye contact with Tenny, frowning. “Yeah, he just got in,” he said into the phone. “Should I tell him?”

A small alarm pinged in the back of Tenny’s mind. “Tell me what?”

Topino’s frown deepened. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We’re headed back now.” He turned back around, dropped his phone in the cupholder, and put the Suburban in gear.

“Tell me what?” Tenny repeated, more sharply. That alarm bell was getting louder by the second. An awareness ofwrong, bad,dangerwalked up the back of his neck.

Topino checked over his shoulder and eased out into traffic. The street in front of the restaurant was flooded with cop cars, police still crawling through the place after talking to Waverly and Tenny – two respected businessmen who’d drawn a lot of “sir”s and “if you would”s. He’d walked out of the meeting just as he’d walked in: wearing an Ian-costume and without any suspicion from the law.

Now, though, he hosted some suspicions of his own.

“What’s going on?” he snapped.

“I can’t say,” Topino said. “I’m just supposed to get you back to the hotel.”

“How reassuring.” He got no answer, and flopped back in his seat. When he folded his arms, Ian’s bespoke suit tugged across his shoulders, and he couldn’t wait to be free of the damn thing.

He pulled out his phone as the interior of the SUV lapsed into silence, and fired off a text to Reese.Where r u?He didn’t expect a response, because Reese was off on a mission of his own…but that should have been done by now. There was no way the gallery gig had taken more time than his painful lunch with Waverly.U didn’t fuck up, did u, idiot?he added…along with a devil smiley face and a heart emoji. Because he was a fucking sap.

No response.

Not after two minutes. Not after five, or ten.

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