So here I’ve sat for the last hour—I guess, since I don’t have my phone on me—waiting, knowing that Gabe will eventually come get me. Because that’s Gabe, my savior in this giant disaster.
Right then, as that thought brushes across my mind, there are voices outside the door. Then, “McKenna?”
I rise. “Gabe?”
The door begins shaking with obvious kicks, dust rising in the air. Two bangs later and when the dust clears, I run into the open arms awaiting me. Gabe’s warmth, his woodsy scent, it’s exactly what I need, and the chill in my body slowly vanishes.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, his cheek resting on the top of my head.
“No, but get me out of this fucking creepy place.”
When I look up into Gabe’s eyes, his brows are drawn as he studies my face, and red-hot fury trickles into the air. “You said you weren’t hurt.” He gently brushes his thumbs across my cheeks, and I cringe when he reaches my mouth.
I reach up to my lip, which apparently split when I hit the ground after Tommy tackled me in Draken’s house. I fight the wince and give Gabe a gentle smile. “I mean, I don’t need to go to the hospital or anything. It’s a small cut from falling that’ll be fine with a little ointment.”
Gabe shuts his eyes for a moment, and when he reopens them, there’s obvious relief in his expression. “I never want to go through anything like this again.”
“You and me both, but honestly, I wasn’t worried.”
One brow wings up, voice hardens. “Please explain to me why being forced into this room and locked inside didn’t make you worried?”
I lean into him, gripping the T-shirt at his back. “Because you’re . . . you . . . and I knew you’d come for me.”
His expression softens, hand sprawls across my cheek. “Next time, I don’t need such a great ordeal to show your belief in me. Just tell me, I’ll believe you.”
I chuckle and lean into his touch. “I think I’ve had enough of loan sharks, bad debts, and tabloids to last me a goddamn lifetime.” My smile fades, and I take a step back. “I take it that you paid Evan’s debt.”
Gabe nods. “Draken didn’t leave me much choice.”
“I’ll pay you back,” I tell him.
His eyes slowly begin to narrow. “McKenna—”
“You two will have to figure that out later.” Ryder’s stern voice comes from the hallway. “We need to get Evan to the hospital right away.”
I move around Gabe, and that’s when I see that Evan’s slumped over Ryder’s shoulder. All the warmth that Gabe brought with him is suddenly gone, drained out of my body, leaving my blood chilled. “Evan.” I shoot forward, toward his limp body, and gently reach for his head, feeling the greasiness of his sandy colored hair, the dust also gathered there. “Is he alive?”
“He is,” Ryder says, striding down the hallway. “But he needs care, and needs it sooner than later.”
When we reach the fork in the hallway, I startle, as Alex’s voice fills the air, “Take a right.”
I glance at Ryder’s h
and, see he’s wearing a wristwatch phone. As I follow him down the next hallway, trotting behind him, keeping up, I realize that, apparently, they’d had a plan coming in here, and they’ve got a plan to get us out. But at the speed he’s moving at, dread sinks its cold teeth into me. Evan’s situation is dire, that much is clear.
“Third door on the left,” Alex says.
Ryder opens that door which leads to a large warehouse with old car parts and boxes dirtying up the cement floors.
“Keep going straight ahead,” Alex says. “You’ll see a door there, exit through that.”
I half-walk, half-jog, following behind Ryder, with Gabe at my back, clearly there to protect me, I’m thinking. He could easily keep stride with Ryder. And in between these two men I feel safer than I’ve ever felt before, I realize. My brother sold these men out, and here they are rescuing him. I need to think, figure all this out, but my heart warms around them, changes somehow, opening in ways I’ve never opened up before.
At the door, Ryder pushes it open, and soon, I’m stepping out into a parking lot obviously in the back of the factory, not near San Francisco’s busy streets.
“We’re out,” Ryder says. “Thank you.”
“Later, boss,” is Alex’s reply.