“Rat fucking bastard!” She almost laughed at the absurdity of where her mind went. Indigo was Dimitris’ lover? Then why Maya? Was she some kind of mole for them at the club? Her friend’s haunting words came back to her. Save them? But who?
The containers? The missing girls? Maya. Pieces started to fall into place.
She shoved a clump of wet hair from her face and peered back inside. Despite the pit of fear and dread that clamped onto her feet and slowly sucked her under she stayed, unable to look away.
More words were exchanged and her only clue to the tone and tenure of the clandestine meeting was the glower on Indigo’s face as she took in Maya then turned to Bjorn, who said something smug by his expression. With her voice raised, bits and pieces of words fell through the cracks to hit her ears. Only two stood out. Thumb drive. She clutched her chest and felt around in the padding of her bra until she touched the warmed metal.
Plastered to the glass again, Rhia clutched to the edges of the window with the tips of her fingers. Whatever was on this thing had goon one and ex-friend goon two at each other’s throats.
Bjorn lashed out and his voice boomed through the night in his native language she didn’t catch.
Indigo said something in return that preluded a fierce backhand against Bjorn’s cheek.
Bjorn must have missed the warning in whatever Indigo said because he took the brunt of her slap with only a smile. No simple task with a man who carried such a large ego to match his mountainous size. Fingernails dug into the metal rim of the window seal and Rhia expected the worst for Indigo. Instead, Bjorn bowed his head, smile gone.
Her brows met her hairline. “What the hell?”
Startled, Rhia gasped and slipped. Before she could fall, she caught herself by the fingernails in a small groove along the window. Her fingers screamed in protest and her calves cramped, but she shoved the pain aside.
That’s when she saw it. Rhia looked on as Indigo raised her arm with a gun aimed at Maya who shrieked and pulled away, stumbling into the side of the car. Dimitris tugged on the leash, forcing Maya to her knees and out of Rhia’s line of sight, which brought her focus to the blonde with murder on her face.
Indigo swung around to Bjorn, who held his hands up. Eyes wide, Rhia scrambled for her phone but couldn’t look away long enough to punch in a number, any number. Her mind became a blank slate, replaced with the horror movie that played out frame by frame as time slowed.
A spark of fire, a flash of light, and loud pop hit her ears before Rhia processed what happened.
Crimson bloomed across Bjorn’s chest moments before he crumpled to the ground, his eyes soulless and now black as Hell’s tar pit.
Rage poured off him as he choked on his last breaths.
Rhia clamped a hand over her mouth as she stared at the limp, dead body.
Indigo murdered him.
The gaping black hole Rhia had fed all her fear into vomited every last drop back into her bloodstream. With her knees locked and her voice lodged in her throat, she couldn’t move or say anything for what felt like an eternity in hell.
Just as fast her adrenaline kicked in and she released her death grip on the windowsill. Water, fate, and bad luck worked against her. In the span of a second her footing slipped from the precarious lip of the box that supported her, and gravity took the wheel for the next five seconds as Rhia stumbled back, landing hard on her ass. Grainy, unforgiving pavement didn’t make the best landing material, and her phone skittered from her grip to land several inches away as the screen flashed on with an incoming call.
The high-pitched shrill carried over the sound of the soft rain and broke the silence like a thousand glass bottles crashing against rock.
She rolled to her stomach and lunged for her phone, the lack of traction from her flats of no use on the slippery wet ground. She kicked off the contraptions and tried again, feeling for the grooves with her toes.
She had to get out of here. Indigo was a killer. That was what Maya had tried to warn her about. Did Sevastyan know? How could he? If they found her, what would they do to her? The phone trilled again, and she palmed the offending contraption and slapped a hand across the glass screen, her vision blurred by water and terror.
A thick cloth-covered biceps connected to an equally chiseled stone chest blocked her vision next.
Her gaze climbed and climbed until her entire vision drank in the large wall of a man who seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
“Maddox?” Dumbstruck she stood there, heart turning into the same boulder she saw standing in front of her.
Metal against metal pinged in their direction and she ducked behind a parked car.
“What the fuck are you doing here? Are you with them? You wanna kill me too?” she screamed back at Maddox moving farther away from him with each step he took in her direction. The man was crazy; he didn’t even fear getting shot. Probably because they were not aiming for their own man.
He lunged for her and caught her around the ankle when she slipped and fell to her knees. Next, massive arms spread in front of her to block out the minuscule light source from a streetlamp.
He pulled them both to their feet. Towering over her, the menacing man bellowed, “Run!” His fists clenched around five-foot-long knives that naturally had most of her attention. A crack of lightning flashed and caught on the edges of the blades. Who the fuck carried daggers anymore?
He stood in front of her wearing his Haven uniform acting like it made him bulletproof.