Page 111 of One Secret

And you left her tied up.

With a strangled cry, I run harder, throwing all my strength into my thighs and hitting the paving stones as hard as I can.

Even flat out, my legs are no match for a speeding vehicle. No matter how fast I go, how many alleys I take, or shortcuts I rush down... Ramirez will be faster. At least twenty minutes faster.

She's dead. I choke on the idea, sweat pouring from my skin, my legs burning in the cold night. If Ramirez went back to hurt her, you're going to be too late. She's already dead.

They. My heart crushes, my lungs spasm. I nearly fall over my own feet. They're already dead.

Gasping for air, I hurtle into the foyer like a bullet.

My panic has me imagining blood running from the ceiling and the marble floor shot to pieces. But everything is normal: the squeaky clean floor, the chattering guests. The only discrepancy is the reception desk. Empty.

Panting, wheezing, I don't give a shit for the golden carriage elevators. I sprint for the desk, vault it, and shove through the door marked "Staff Only". I race up a staircase I've been pretending not to know about, hoisting myself faster on the handrail and leaping the last few steps. Charging through the door for the second floor brings me out at the wrong end of our corridor and I turn on my heel to speed back towards the Athena Suite.

My heart stops when I turn a corner and spot the right room.

'No...' I choke.

The door looks like it's been assaulted with a battering ram. The paint is smashed and flecking and a large crack slices across its front, down to the busted lock half hanging off the wood. It's been wedged back into its frame but the door is destroyed. Like a bulldozer has forced its way inside.

A bulldozer that, I have no doubt, had a fucking onyx earring... and a gun.

'No!'

I sprint the last few feet and throw aside the little yellow maintenance sign propped beside the damage.

The door gives way easily under my shoulder, springs wide, and then snaps back off the wall. The lock clocks me in the elbow on the rebound but I hardly notice. I hit the lights.

The room is carnage. Both beds are rumpled heaps and the lamp on the desk has been smashed, its pieces strewn over the floor. The chair Darcy was tied to is broken and has been left to die beneath the window. An angry slash cuts deep into its padding and it's bleeding stuffing onto the carpet.

There's a bullet hole in the bedside cabinet.

My heart stops even as my head tries to tell me there's no blood. No body. The room, in fact, is empty.

'Darcy?!' I call, half-choking on her name.

'Cyrus?'

I almost fall to my knees with just the sound of her voice. The bathroom door cracks open and my stomach twists hard. In the bathroom. She's been hiding in the bathroom.

'Yeah, baby, it's me.'

The door opens wider and Darcy rushes out. I have just enough time to register the gun and silencer she wields in one hand before she's wrapping her arms around my neck and burrowing in deep.

Forgetting everything else, just for a second, I squeeze her close and breathe in the scent of her.

'Fuck me, it's good to feel you...' I mutter against her skin. Her warm, alive skin. Loathe as I am to break away from her, I think of that bullet hole and break the embrace. 'Come on, we need to get out of here and—'

Darcy tenses in my arms.

'Are more coming?'

'More?' I ask with surprise.

Reading the scene, my assumption had been Ramirez launching an assault on an empty suite and destroying it in frustration when he found his target missing. But then, how would she get the gun? It's not one of mine...

Dread turns the blood in my veins to tar.

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