1
CONNOR
If anyone had asked me right before this moment, I’d have said I wasn’t scared of a fucking thing. Nothing. Not pain, not violence, not death. But trapped on the top level of the warehouse with a fire alarm screaming downstairs and the smell of smoke rising steadily up, I’ve learned a new fact about myself.
The thought of burning alive in this building fuckingterrifiesme.
It’s a cold, shivering kind of fear, the kind that goes straight down to your bones and makes your knees feel as if they’ve turned to liquid like they won’t hold me up. I fight it back because my next thought after realizing that I’m really, truly fucking scared for the first time in my life, is about my brother.
Liam.
I came back to Boston to protect him. To save his life. And now he might lose it anyway, along with the rest of us.
“Boss, we gotta figure something out,” Quint mutters from my right. “We’re gonna die in here if we don’t.”
I know he’s right. Everyone is panic-stricken with realization. Graham looks half-frozen with shock, and Levin’s face is grim. Luca and Viktor are both pale, no doubt thinking about their families. When I look at Liam, I can see that he looks much the same.
I know he’s thinking about Ana and their baby that he might never get to see. And that’s my next thought after my fear for my brother, unbidden out of nowhere, though I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d think ofherwith my life on the line.
Saoirse.
She’ll probably be glad to be a widow,I think grimly as I look around for some other way out. Several of my and Liam’s men are already going from window to window, looking for any fire escape that might be stable enough to get us down from here.
“We can go up,” Jacob says tightly, fear lacing his words too. “But we’ll just be on the roof. It might not do us much fucking good. If one of us can call for help and they get a helicopter out here for us, maybe.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Viktor laughs darkly. “Calling the law to helpus.”
“We’ve got nearly the entire Boston PD in our pocket,” Liam shoots back. “I maintained those relationships after my father died, kept the Kings off the radar. But of course, I’ve done such a fucking horrible job that my brother came home to unseat me.” His gaze turns towards me, full of heated anger. “Instead, we’re both going to be corpses, ruling over a kingdom of ashes.”
“Not so fast. There’s got to be a way out. The alarms just started going off.” It’s been less than a minute since the first alarm started—or at least since weheardit—and it can’t have spread that fast. I have to believe that there’s a way out. “We’re not going to roast in here,” I say decisively, stepping forward. “Let’s go.Now.”
“Where?” Quint asks sharply. “The stairs? Not the fuckin’ elevator, that’s for sure.”
“No, the elevator isn’t an option.” It’s ancient, one of the ones that require the grated door to be pulled shut and uncertain in the best of times—which this most definitely is not. “We’ll take the stairs.”
“We don’t know where it started—”
“The stairs,” I say sharply, in a tone so firm and loud that everyone stops moving or talking and faces me. Graham, for once, doesn’t even look as if he wants to question my judgment, but I’m not sure he’s thinking at all.
They’re all frozen with terror, and it’s my job to get them out of here. To be a leader.
“It’s a chance.” Viktor steps forward, motioning for Levin and Luca to join him, to mobilize the others. “That’s the best we can hope for.”
Liam jerks himself out of his terrified stupor, gesturing to the other Kings as well. “Let’s do this,” he agrees. “And then,” he adds, glancing at me. “We can find out who’s responsible for this.”
Arson? In the first flush of shock and fear, it hadn’t occurred to me that this might have been anything other than an accident—faulty wiring or just plain bad luck. Retaliation from somewhere hadn’t been my first thought.
“Aye, and if it’s arson, your side would be the one to cause it!” Quint snarls, tempers rising as the immediacy of the situation begins to get to all of us.
“That’s a heavy accusation to throw,” Niall says darkly, his brow drawing down as Viktor and I round on them both.
“We can fight later,” Viktor snaps. “Right now, let’s work on ensuring we’ll be alive to fight amongst ourselves at all.”
He strides forward, down the stairs leading towards the second level. Luca, Levin, and I follow behind him, everyone else bringing up the rear as we file down the steps. The smell of smoke gets thicker as we go down, the shrieking of the fire alarm louder, both of them an assault on my senses, warning me that we’re in danger.
Behind us, Niall says something low under his breath that I can’t hear, probably to Liam, but I can’t dwell on it now. We reach the door at the end of the stairwell, and I reach out, placing my palm against it lightly to test how hot it is. If it feels like it might burn me, then we’ll have to take our chances on the roof.
It’s warm but not burning. “Let’s go. Hurry,” I urge the others, opening the door to the next level, to take the next set of stairs down. I resist the urge to look back at my brother—we can’t hesitate now. The smell of smoke is getting stronger, the fire alarms louder as we reach the second of five floors, and I know we’re racing against time to get out of here.