by Katie Reus
Her gut tightened as two men holding pistols at their sides slowly moved past the doorway. It took her all of two seconds to realize there were silencers on the end of both of their guns. Otherwise the weapons wouldn’t be so long. Beads of sweat rolled down her spine.
What the ever-loving hell was going on?
She didn’t allow herself even a breath of relief as they kept going. Hell no, she was in danger and needed to get out of here like ten minutes ago. She slowly reached into her bag, palmed her keys and clutched them tightly so they wouldn’t jingle. With a shaking hand, she managed to tuck them into the tight pocket of her skirt. She still had the flash drive in her other pocket. At least the keys wouldn’t make any noise. Next she slid her laptop out of her bag and eased her bag to the ground. She didn’t need it to weigh her down right now and there was no way she was leaving her laptop behind for someone to find.
Listening to the sound of their soft footfalls, she waited until she thought they were far enough down the hallway away from her to peek out the doorway. When she looked, she saw two shadowy figures stepping into her temporary office.
Heart racing, she knew it was now or never. She slipped out of her heels, tucked them behind the door with her bag and ran down the hallway as fast and as quietly as she could manage. Her pulse was out of control, the sound of her heartbeat thudding in her ears so loudly she was glad she was the only one who could hear it.
She needed to put as much distance between her and them as possible. She didn’t care who they were or who had sent them. All she knew was that two men with guns were looking for her.
Just as she was about to reach the end of the hallway where it T-boned into the elevators, she heard a shout behind her.
“Hey!” one of the men yelled.
No way was Isa going to respond or turn around and slow down. Since the elevators wouldn’t be working without power, she veered left toward the stairs. Now she didn’t bother to mute her movements, and ran as fast as she could.
She slammed her hands into the metal release bar. The door flew open, ricocheting off the wall. At this point it didn’t matter how loud she was. She was running for her life.
The sound of her heart pounding in her ears was all she could hear as she entered the dimly lit stairwell. There was an orange glow barely illuminating her way, probably from a generator or something. She wasn’t sure if she should try hiding somewhere or just run. In the end she made the decision to run. She didn’t have a choice, not when two men wanted to kill her—or maybe they wanted to kidnap and torture her. Either option wasn’t good. Because she was pretty sure they didn’t just want to talk to her.
The concrete and metal of the stairs was cold against the soles of her bare feet as she made her way down flight after flight. Sweat slicked the back of her neck and down her spine, the fear punching through her, needle-sharp. She alternated between feeling hot and cold. As she made it down another flight, she heard a door slam open from above. It had to be the two men.
Instead of continuing racing downstairs, she stopped at the nearest door and opened it as quietly as she could. She slipped into the hallway of the sixth floor and gently pulled the door shut behind her. She could only hope they wouldn’t realize she’d exited the stairwell here.
Her feet were silent along the carpeted hallway and she was grateful for the downtown light helping to illuminate her way. There were so many shadows though, and she was terrified there were more men waiting in them, ready to shoot her. She wished she had a better plan other than to put distance between the two men with guns and find a way to call for help if she couldn’t get out of the building. But that was all she could do right now. She also desperately needed to get in contact with Graysen, to make sure he was okay. But she had no idea how the hell to do that, not when his phone was in the lobby. One step at a time, she ordered herself. She was going to find a way to call for help no matter what.
Halfway down the hall, she heard a woman talking. On instinct she sidestepped into what turned out to be a copy room.
“Generator…”
“We’ll figure it out…” That was definitely a male voice.
Straining, struggling to keep her breathing under control, she tried to listen harder and figure out who the two people were and whether she knew them. For all she knew they were with the men who were running after her.
When the voices got closer, she squeezed behind one of the copy machines. Because there wasn’t much light, she was able to use the shadows to help her remain invisible.
She tensed when a woman screamed and a man shouted. What the hell was going on out there? Torn between leaving her hiding space or staying there, her decision was made when she heard a puff, puff, puff of air. The screaming and shouting immediately cut off.
Oh, God. Isa bit down on the inside of her lip. They’d shot those people.
Hot tears stung her eyes. Two innocent people were dead. Or dying.
“Damn it… Not the right woman.” The man’s voice was frustrated and way too close for comfort. She couldn’t see but it sounded like he was near the doorway of the copy room or just inside it.
She barely breathed, too afraid to make any noises.
“What should we do with the bodies?” another man asked.
Ohgodohgodohgod. She had no weapon and no way to call anyone for help. All she could hope was that Graysen wasn’t in the same situation she was. Of course if he was, he was a heck of a lot more trained than she was to deal with armed men.
“Have someone clean up tonight. Or maybe leave them. I don’t know what the plan is but it’s not our problem…” His words trailed off and she heard a tapping sound. She couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Come on, let’s keep sweeping.”
“Even if the stupid bitch makes it downstairs she won’t get out of here alive.” The second man made an obnoxious snorting sound.
She forced herself to stay where she was, and counted to sixty seconds as they moved away from the copy room. Then she counted to sixty again, and again, until ten full minutes had passed.
Even though she was terrified to move from her hiding place, she knew she had to. She couldn’t stay here and wait for them to come back. No, she had to get help, find a phone, something. Her knees ached as she pushed up and wiggled out of her hiding spot. Thankfully no one was waiting to attack her. As she stepped into the middle of the room, two legs became visible through the doorway. A three-inch heel dangled from one of the woman’s feet and the other shoe was a foot away from her body.
Clutching her laptop tightly to her chest, Isa peered out into the hallway. Now she could see the woman’s entire body, and a man not far from her, sprawled on his back. A big stain spread across the man’s shirt, and in the dimness it looked black. But she knew what it was. His blood.
Her skin crawled. Just to be sure she tested their pulses, even if there was nothing she could do for them. But both of them were dead. Then, feeling ghoulish, she checked them for cell phones just in case. Nothing.
As one of the killers’ words replayed in her mind, she tried to figure out her next move. He’d said if she made it downstairs, she still wouldn’t escape. There had to be more of them, or someone else waiting for her.
Think, think, think.
Graysen was well-trained, and if he was in the building would know what to do. She needed to find him somehow, and the only thing she could think to do at this point was to return to her office. She’d already been there so those men likely wouldn’t return. At least not right away. Eventually they’d do another full sweep and if they had enough men, they’d find her. She had to get help before that happened.
But maybe Graysen had gone looking for her—she hoped so. If he wasn’t there, she would head to the office they’d been using during the week to view the video footage.
If he wasn’t in either of those places, she’d figure out what to do then. For now, she would take things one step at a time and just try to stay alive.
Though
she hated to use the stairs, there was no other way around it. Instead of using the stairwell on the west side, however, she headed to the east stairwell.
Taking a deep breath, she eased the door open. She couldn’t hear any movement and there was just the faintest light illuminating the stairwell. It would have to do.
Her feet were silent once again as she raced up the stairs. And once more all she could hear was the pounding of her heart. This was a nightmare come to life. She’d never felt so vulnerable. Not even the day she’d seen her father’s body sprawled on the floor. She just prayed that Graysen was okay.
The thought of something happening to him terrified her. It didn’t matter what had happened in their past. In this moment, she desperately wanted him to be alive and well. If anyone could survive, it would be him. And he would help her.
Still holding her laptop in a death grip with one hand, she wiped her free damp palm on her skirt as she reached the tenth floor. Sucking in a quiet breath, she pulled the door open a crack so she could peer into the hallway.
Shadows and muted streams of outside city lights from open doorways greeted her.
When a door from somewhere below her groaned open, she darted into the hallway. As the door shut quietly behind her, a big hand slammed over her mouth.
Chapter 13
Alan paced back and forth in the lobby. Everything had gone so wrong. Luckily Yuri thought they could still salvage this operation, but too many people were dead to cover this up now.
Which meant they were going to have to make this look like a terrorist attack—and technically it was.
“Stop worrying. We have this under control.” The man named Dmitri spoke quietly, not moving from his position by the security desk in the lobby. His dark eyes were like black pools.
Unease crawled up his spine. Alan wouldn’t admit it, but the man and everyone else Yuri had sent in tonight scared him. It was probably a good thing Yuri himself wasn’t here. “I’m not worried,” he snapped.
But…he was. When he’d overheard Isa Harper’s phone conversation with a woman named Emerson a half hour ago, he’d gone into panic mode. He’d tapped Isa’s phone so he’d know exactly what she was up to. He was worried that he might have overreacted, but something about her tone had bothered him. Not to mention the Emerson woman had mentioned pinging someone named Graysen via the man’s phone. And that phone was supposed to be in this lobby. It was too late now to worry about it since everything was set into motion.
Alan had already gone through the phones left with security but all of them had security codes so he couldn’t get into them. Not that it mattered. Once Alan had heard that conversation, he’d contacted Yuri—who’d immediately activated his reinforcements: a dozen trained men who’d been waiting in two vans in the parking garage of the building.
Alan had known they were there, of course. The men had been hiding for the past two days. He’d given them security passes to get into the garage and building. No one, not even security, had any idea that armed men had been waiting in those vans.
Alan had only wanted to contain Isa and find out what she knew, if anything, before killing her. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone else in the building. But when she’d said she’d found some files with odd-looking code, he’d had to act fast and get the building contained before she could send anything out or make any more calls. It had to be the files with the specs for the military drones. He wasn’t directly involved with the project but he’d modified Raptor’s programming. He’d been so damn careful but she must have found something.
Now everything was a giant clusterfuck since too many people were dead. And Alan wanted to know who the hell the man named Graysen was that Isa had referred to. If he had to guess, it was the new hire Hamilton had brought in. Not that he could very well ask Hamilton. The man had gone home for the evening, and as far as Alan was concerned, he was going to come to work tomorrow just like everyone else and find out that their company had been robbed and most of the security guys killed. To cover his bases, Alan had made everyone on the security team who had families call home and tell them they’d be working late so no worried spouse would call the cops. Then Dmitri had killed them. That was one thing he didn’t have to worry about.
Yuri had rerouted the alert that should have gone to Hamilton when the power had gone out so he never received it. Another thing taken care of. Still… Sweat beaded at the base of Alan’s spine as he thought of everything else that could go wrong.
Yuri had a plan in place to frame it on two of their current single security guys—the two men had been killed but their bodies would never be found. Alan had no idea what was going to happen to the bodies, and he didn’t much care as long as they disappeared. Yuri was going to leave a paper trail making it look like they’d fled the country late tonight.
Raptor Aeronautical had many patents, so framing the two men for stealing the information and selling it to the highest bidder wouldn’t be hard to believe. Alan just hated that things had gotten so messy. This was supposed to have been controlled, with no one knowing anything out of the ordinary had happened here until long afterward. When he put in his notice with the company, he’d wanted it to be without any cloud hanging above him. He might still be able to pull off this op, but the timing of his leaving the company after an attack wasn’t ideal.
Alan frowned at Dmitri when he let out a curse.
“What is it?” he asked as Dmitri shoved his phone into the pocket of his tactical pants.
“Two of my men are dead.”
He stiffened. “What? How?” The people who worked here were analysts, techs, and computer types. Even the former military hires they had were all intel people. Not highly trained soldiers. And he’d seen the resume of every single person who’d been hired, so he knew that for a fact. The company’s security people were all accounted for. Either dead or currently incapacitated by Yuri’s people.
“Broken necks.” Dmitri’s expression was grim and slightly accusing as he stared at Alan.
“You think I know who did that?” He could feel sweat beading his upper lip and across his forehead. Nothing was going according to plan. And he wouldn’t be paid the rest of his money until everything was delivered. His fiancée wouldn’t like that. She was so insistent they live a certain lifestyle.
He rolled his shoulders, forced himself to think. He’d already input the last of the special code into the final design for the military drones they were releasing to the American government soon.
It had been woven in so subtly to the onboard computers, it was practically invisible. No one would discover what he’d done. Or they shouldn’t have been able to discover it. Unfortunately he was afraid Isa had. That was why he had to make sure she didn’t make it out of the building.
Once those drones crossed the border into certain areas, Yuri and the people he worked for would be able to commandeer the drones easily. From there…Alan didn’t care what they did with them.
That wasn’t his problem. The only thing he cared about was making sure that bitch Isa didn’t get out of the building alive. And now apparently they needed to find whoever had killed two of Yuri’s men and make sure they didn’t get out either—because he somehow doubted Isa had broken the necks of two of Yuri’s men. He supposed it was possible, but she didn’t look strong enough.
“Has anyone made a call to the police?” Alan asked, since Yuri’s people were monitoring local police communication.
Dmitri shook his head. “No. You have no idea who could have killed my men?” His dark eyes were murderous as he stared at Alan.
He blinked at the accusatory tone. “No.” He wanted his damn money, wanted to leave the country.
Dmitri just gave him another hard look before turning away from him. He shouted out orders to three of his men who immediately headed for one of the stairwells. Alan wasn’t certain what he said since he spoke in Russian, but it was pretty damn clear Dmitri had ordered them to find whoever had done this.
The only r
eason Alan wasn’t completely panicking right now was because the building was locked down and there was no way for Isa to communicate with anyone outside it. That was why they had to make sure she didn’t make it out of here alive.
If he could leave, he would. But if tried he knew that Dmitri would kill him. He might have already input all the code but he only got paid once those drones were delivered. So they had to make sure absolutely no one was suspicious of the drone project.
He was tempted to simply run and just try to live on the money he’d already made. He and his fiancée would be able to make do… But for now, he planned to see this through to the end. Once Isa and whoever her partner was were killed, he and Yuri’s team would all leave the building.
Then in the morning he’d come to work and act just as shocked as everyone else by the massacre that had occurred here. He’d have to deal with questions from the police, and yeah, probably the Feds, but he’d go through with it, appear shaken and distraught.
Nothing that happened here should be traceable back to him. Most importantly, no one would even know the drone project had been compromised. The authorities would be looking for the terrorists who’d attacked the building and stolen the patent to Project ACAS—an important project for the company, but with no ties to him.
He just had to get through the next few hours alive—and make sure Isa Harper didn’t.
Chapter 14
“It’s me,” Graysen said quietly as Isa reared her head back, trying to slam it against his face.
Immediately she stilled and he let his hand drop from her mouth. He’d been ready to kill whoever had come through that door, to snap their neck—until he’d realized it was her.
She swiveled, fear clear in her expression even under the dim lighting. She opened her mouth to speak but he just held up a finger and pointed down the hallway.
She nodded and he stepped in front of her, wanting to be between her and any more potential threats. He wasn’t certain what was going on yet, but this building was under attack. He’d already killed two armed men with Russian tattoos. If he’d had his cell phone or camera, he’d have snapped some images of the tats.