Page 118 of After All The Wreckage
He turned and headed down the stairs with Chanel on his heels.
“We can’t do it here. Not yet. I haven’t cleaned out all the ties to Lovato.”
“You have five minutes. As soon as we walk outside with Demi, the son will follow us easily enough. And Rory will follow them,” West told her.
My entire body froze… the son… God. Gage was here.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to send a scathing text telling him to get the hell out of here, but there was no time. They were already on the move.
Above me, Dunn reappeared, and this time he had his arm around another woman. It took me way too long to recognize Demi. She looked nothing like the vibrant, fairy-like woman I’d once met.
She looked so frail I wasn’t sure she’d make it down the stairs. Her strawberry-blond hair was stringy and thin, clinging to her face. She wore a tank top that allowed every bone in her neck, chest, and arms to stick out in the worst kind of way while a pair of sweats hung from her nonexistent hips.
I pulled my gun from my back, trying to quell the shaking, as the truth of Monte’s vision hit me. I was here. Demi and Dunn were here.
Someone was going to die.
I sent a prayer out into the universe, hoping it wouldn’t be Demi.
Hoping I wouldn’t be the reason another mother died tonight.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Gage
SEND ME AN ANGEL
Performed by Scorpions
As I climbed backinto the Pathfinder, I shook off the rain that had settled over me while I’d explored the first empty warehouse and tossed my phone in the cup holder. A dark object on the passenger seat caught my eye. Rory’s stun gun. The one that looked like a flashlight rather than an actual weapon.
I reached over and picked it up. The light on one end actually worked, and when I pushed the side button, electricity zipped through the nodes. Had I just wasted the charge? I hoped not. I could use a weapon. Something that wasn’t an actual gun.
My jaw tensed. I set the stun gun with my phone and drove through the quiet streets of D.C. to the second warehouse. A wave of relief flew through me upon seeing Rory’s grandfather’s old Jeep in the lot opposite. I pulled up next to it, cutting my engine.
The sun was fighting for purchase against both the night and the storm clouds, but in the dim shadows, I could see the Jeep was empty. I peered across the street to the building she’d been staking out. My chest seized as I realized she was already inside… Inside a warehouse where Monte had seen my mom, Rory, and a crooked politician all die at different times.
Every instinct was screaming to sprint across the street, throw open the front door, and demand the assholes hand back my family. I grabbed the stun gun, pocketed my phone, and headed across to the building.
As I slipped through the chain-link fence, I noticed the first camera. There were likely more I couldn’t see, which meant whoever was inside was probably already aware I was there. I could only hope that in dealing with me, I could be the distraction Rory needed to get Demi and whatever other information she needed. Because even though they’d seen me coming, I knew for a fact they hadn’t seen her.
I walked straight up to the main door and pulled it open with a shaking hand. I stepped inside, dread filling me because I didn’t know what I was walking into. But I believed in Monte, and he’d know if something was going to happen to me. Whenever I died, it wasn’t going to be here. Not tonight. But it might be Rory. The woman I loved.
The wind caught the door, whisking it out of my hand and banging it against the wall. The sound echoed into the warehouse, any last chance of surprise being wiped away.
I strode deeper into the building, feet halting as I caught sight of Dunn coming down the stairs with a woman who I hardly recognized as my mother. She was nothing more than a skeleton of the free spirit who’d had Ivy and then left us. Her skin was pallid, with dark circles under her eyes making her look ghost-like—as if she’d already died and they were hauling a corpse around.
Unexpected fury raged through me. “Let go of my mother!”
From my peripheral, I caught movement. West and another woman I didn’t recognize stepped around a stack of boxes bearing a coffee company’s logo. They joined Dunn and Demi, their tailored pants and suits hiding the sleaze that radiated around them as if a vat of oil covered their auras. The darkness around West had grown stronger, shimmering into an evilness that I could almost smell.
West pulled a gun from inside his jacket and pointed it in my direction.
I took three steps toward him. My lack of fear seemed to confuse him, and he turned the gun in my mother’s direction. That did stop me.
“I don’t care what you’re doing here,” I growled, waving to the crates. “I don’t care about who you’re working for or what bribes you’ve taken. I just want Demi and me to walk out these doors alive.”
It took great effort to keep my gaze on the men and my mother when I really wanted to search the shadows for the five-foot-five supersleuth I knew was here somewhere. I could feel her. I could sense her almost as if she was right at my side.
