Page 68 of The Prizes We Win
The elevator dings as we pass another floor, leaving only three floors between us and them.
“Somebody is probably gonna want to call Clara and have her tell the staff to take a personal day tomorrow.” Seb cocks his gun and the rest of us follow
Two floors.
“Going to need to call the clean-up crew too,” Dante adds.
One floor.
Enzo bounces on the balls of his feet. “Least amount of bodies has to call her.”
“Awww, that’s not fair,” I whine.
Sebastian winks. “She likes you the most anyway.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I reply.
“Guys,” Dante says just before the elevator stops moving.
The five of us raise our weapons in unison just as the elevator doors open. Dante and Luca step in front of Enzo, Sebastian, and me, effectively blocking us from anything that’s about to open.
But when the doors open all the way, all there is is… silence.
“Jesus fucking christ.” Luca’s shoulders drop, but Dante’s posture remains still. “We’re definitely gonna need that cleaning crew.”
“W-what do you—” I peek around Luca, Sebastian, and Enzo around Dante. The second my eyes land on the sight in front of us, I feel my heart fall out of my chest.
“What in the actual fuck?” Enzo tries to move around him, but Dante’s large body doesn’t budge.
“Seb, how many bodyguards did you say?” Dante asks.
“Eight.”
“There’s ten bodies.” Dante steps forward and quickly looks around the lobby area of our floor. The dead security guard is lying in the corner, but that’s not what Dante’s focus is on. He walks down the line, looking at all eight deceased bodies before moving to the ninth one lying on his stomach behind all of them. Crouching down, he grabs a fistful of hair, but I know who it is before he even lifts his head. And when I look over at Enzo, he does, too. “It’s Andrei,” Dante says before letting go of his head and letting it fall back to the floor.
The four of us walk out of the elevator and continue to take in the morbid scene in front of us. “How in the hell?” Sebastian asks.
Dante stands and points to the wall behind us. “Look.” We all turn around and find bullet holes sprayed across the wall. “Someone had an automatic. Shot them all before they could even blink. Then used their handgun to shoot him”—he nods at Andrei’s lifeless body down at his feet—“in the temple.”
My eyes widen at Dante’s quick ability to piece all of that together, but as I look at the rest of the guys, they seem completely unfazed by Dante’s skill and are just nodding in agreement. Sometimes I truly forget how talented he is. His skills and talents may be different than Luca, Enzo, or Sebastian’s, but he’s a force to be reckoned with nevertheless.
They all are.
And so am I.
“By someone you mean, Maxim?” Seb asks.
“He’s the only one not here, and you locked the floor down. Unless he jumped out a window, there’s no way he could have gotten out,” Dante replies.
“Why the fuck did he kill everyone? I mean, what does he have to gain from that? He has to know he doesn’t stand a chance against five of us unless—” Luca stops, and his face goes white.“Clara.” Her name drops from his mouth like a bomb as he looks over at her desk.
Right there, at the desk in front of his office, sits her coat and bag. The Hermes bag she told me Luca bought for her for Christmas a few years ago. The same one that quite literally holds her entire life inside of it. And the same one shenevergoes anywhere without.
“She was still here.” Sebastian’s voice shakes in horror. “I didn’t know she was still here. Why was she still here?!” He looks at Dante as his breath grows rapid.
“That’s it. That’s his bargaining chip. That’s how he thinks he’s going to make it out of this. She’s still alive.” Dante looks at a panicked Sebastian and storms over to him. Grabbing Seb’s face in his hands, he shakes him slightly. “Listen to me. This is not your fault. She was just doing her job. She was doing what we asked her to. You can spiral and apologize to her about this later. But you can only do that if she’s alive. We do not have time for this right now so you need to get it the fuck together.”
“Dante,” I say softly, but his stare doesn’t stray from Sebastian’s.
