Page 57 of Married to My Master

She gave him the number and settled back into the passenger seat of the cop car, her nose wrinkling at the smell. Now that she wasn't under constant tress, she realized how much the interior stank of stale coffee and fast food.

“Oh, Dane,” she groaned, lying back in the seat. “This was not how it was all supposed to end.”

As she rested there for a moment, the police radio blaring its almost incomprehensible slang and cop-talk, she realized suddenly what they were saying. “Perp is at BioSphere offices downtown. Repeat, all units proceed to BioSphere for suspected shooter incident. Offices shut down and cordoned off. Repeat, all units proceed to BioSphere.”

Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, fuck!

Dane!

She'd never been a praying woman before. She felt everything she'd ever accomplished had been on her own merits. There had never been any help, especially from her mother.

But, whether or not she was before that day, sitting in that cop car with the radio crackling and popping, she became one.

“Please,” she whispered. “Just let him come home to me.”

# # #

Dane

“Dane?” Jas, purse and empty travel mug in hand, asked as he burst into the lobby. “What are you doing here?” She must have remembered quickly, though, because she began to backpedal away from him as he advanced on her.

“Sorry, Jas,” he growled, as he shot an arm out and grabbed hold of her. “This needs to look real.”

She screamed as he yanked her into his one-armed embrace and pulled his pistol from his jacket. All around them, the lobby broke into a panic, ten or so employees yelling and shoving, rushing for the fire exits—any exits—desperate to get away from Dane and his hostage. “Security!” screamed an older woman's voice, as she ran from the action. “He has a gun!”

“Jas, be cool,” Dane growled in her ear as he made his way to the elevator, the BioSphere employees fleeing in front of him like rats from a sinking ship. “I need you to get me to Edward's office.”

“Be cool?” she gasped, beginning to hyperventilate. “Dane, this is so not cool! What the fuck are you doing?”

All around them, security began to swarm. There were four men in clean and pressed white shirts, their pistols raised, just doing their jobs.

Dane felt bad for them, and for Jas. But, he'd done plenty of things already that he felt bad about, and this was a little like icing on the cake, as far as he was concerned. “Using you as a hostage,” he replied, trying to keep his voice as cheery as he could. “Emily's safe, I promise. This is all to help with our little problem.”

She seemed to relax a little at his words, but not much.

He didn't like using Jas this way, or having to put her in any unnecessary danger. But, unfortunately, she'd been the closest person for him to grab. If the older lady screaming for security had been closer, she'd be the one he was guiding to the elevator. “I'm going up,” he said to the security guards as he made his way to elevator. “Anyone try and stop me, I decorate your lobby with this sweet thing's brains.”

The men looked back and forth to each other, then to the cops who were swarming up around Emily's Escalade that Dane had so unceremoniously parked in the little concrete plaza.

He didn't wait for their say so, but dragged Jas the rest of the way to the elevator. “Push the button,” he said.

Jas pushed it, her other hand returning to his wrist. “Aw,” she whispered, “you called me sweet thing.”

Dane ignored her little aside and, when the elevator buzzed, he stepped away from the button.

People came streaming out of the elevator, anxious to get home from work, and, upon seeing the gun he was brandishing, went running for the exits like the employees in the lobby had, earlier.

With the elevator clear, he and Jas stepped on.

“Press Barker's floor,” he growled to Jas, as he stepped closer to the panel, the gun still at her head.

With a slightly shaky finger—not nearly as shaken as it should have been, though—she pushed the top floor. Edward was the on same floor as Emily, he noticed.

He turned his words back to the security guards stationed outside in the lobby, even though he'd never let his attention from them waver. “You stop the elevator, you have people waiting for me, or you do anything I don't fucking like,” he growled, “I put two in the bitch's head. Got it?”

The doors closed before they could respond.

“Ugh,” Jas groaned. “Did you really have to call me a bitch?”

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