Page 57 of Vengeance

I take my earpiece out my pocket and say into it, “Surround the place now. I’m going up.”

“Not alone,”both Wyan and Eileen say into my ear.

“I won’t be alone. Adrian will be there,” I say.

That’s not what they mean, but regardless, I’m not leaving Adrian up there with his sociopath of a boss any longer than I have to.

“You all just focus on securing the perimeter, making sure he’s got no other men around the other parts of the building, and keeping Pray’s men from getting in before the authorities come,” I say.

“What authorities?”Wyan ask.

I take off my earpiece, grab a keycard off one of the guards, and make my way to the elevator, ignoring Wyan’s questions. I scan the keycard to get access to the upper restricted floors. The elevator can’t move fast enough, and I hardly wait for it to open before I walk out the elevators and down the hall, my heart pounding in my chest. Because while I have every confidence in Adrian, this is the man who abandoned his daughter, tried to kill her, and, when he failed, imprisoned her for seven years and kept her in line by making her think he had her children captive. There’s no limit to his depravity.

I walk in on Viper kneeling on one knee with Pray reaching for his gun. I don’t even think, I grab both my guns, shoot Pray in the wrist with one and shoot the guard near Delilah but not holding her back.

“Handsoffmy husband.”

“Finally, I can stop acting all helpless and like a stereotype,” Delilah says.

All hell breaks loose, and when I say all hell, I mean all hell. Delilah is able to handle the man holding her, and Adrian, while looking beat up with blood running down his face from where I’m guessing Pray hit him, is able to deal with the one guard that tries to subdue him while the other assists his boss who is nursing a literal bleeding hole in his wrist. But what none of us expected or can handle are the men who flood through the door behind them.

Adrian knows that too, because he retreats, jumps across the table to punch the guard Delilah is dealing with in the throat, and drags her in my direction to retreat.

We barely begin down the hall to the elevator before we hear bullets hit the glass doors behind us and rush forward looking for cover. We’re about to round the corner before the bullets pierce the glass or the other guards come through but stop upon seeing more of Pray’s men coming and take our chances going for the stairway

We’re inside and locking it behind us before belatedly realizing that trapping ourselves in a closed off space when we don’t know where our enemies or allies are is a bad idea.

“Wyan, what’s the status?” I ask putting my earpiece back in as we go down the stairs.

“You’d know if you’d kept your earpiece on instead of ignoring us.”

“Why were you ignoring them?” Adrian demands.

“No time,” I snap.

“We ran into some trouble.”

“Please tell me the stairway is secured.”

“Depends on which one.”

“We’re in the north staircase,” Adrian says.

“That one is secured. It’s the south one that we’re having difficulty with.”

“That’s where Pray is going to try to escape,” Adrian says.

“Please tell me you have a way for use to get over there before he escapes?” I ask.

“There’s no way he’s escaping.”

“Don’t underestimate Pray,” Adrian says. Then, “I can get us to him. We’re going to need to go down seven more floors.”

“Don’t you have some sort of grappling hook?” Delilah asks.

“What do I look like? Batman?”

“Kind of with that stupid ass mask you wear as Viper.”

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