Chapter Eight
“Sevastyan. Shut the fuck up and listen. They tried to kill me. But Maddox was there. He saved me. Why is everyone trying to kill everyone else? What next fucking flying monkeys?” God, please don’t let there be flying monkeys, because this felt just like she got sucked up into some Wizard of Oz shit.
“Maddox is there?” Sevastyan’s voice flattened.
She didn’t bother answering. “Don’t come to the warehouse,” she yelled so Sevastyan could hear her over the speaker. “I’m not there.”
Water sluiced across her windshield and used the gaping hole where her door used to be as an open invitation to drench her. Habit had her flicking on the wipers. She ate a red light and dodged a few stray cars that appeared to be sitting still as she swerved in and out of traffic to the sound of blasting horns. She clutched her stomach like she did the steering wheel and prayed.
Time wobbled around her, and she didn’t pay much attention to traffic signs or the water flooding the floorboards.
“Woman, you are going to be the fucking death of me. Where are you going? We will meet you there. Stay in your car, for God’s sake, and lock the doors.” His words were garbled, thick with his accent, and cut in and out, but she caught what he said.
She eyed her door with a quick flick of her gaze. “That might be tricky.” Lock the doors? She wanted to laugh.
“Home. Meet me there,” she answered before the connection cut completely.
Ten minutes later she launched herself up the several flights of stairs, her bare, feet smacking the cold concrete, leaving behind a wet trail anyone could follow. The shaking finally stopped when she’d killed the engine, but her body continued to tremble to the point her knees felt like Jell-O with each stair. In retrospect maybe staying in the car would have been the wiser move.
She managed to get both her feet on the top landing without anyone jumping out of the bushes. That was a score in her book.
From behind the stairwell wall, she peered down the half-lit hall to find it clear.
The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, but she brushed it off as remnants of the leftover adrenaline still kicking around in her bloodstream. Truth be told, her veins felt alive with the stuff and her heart rate could attest to the fact.
She pushed forward, and from what she could see, nothing seemed out of order. Her door was secure and not a soul could be seen on her floor or on the grounds. The rain had died and the neighbors were tucked away, she presumed.
Hugging the cement-roughened walls, she palmed her keys, slid the deadbolt loose with a couple of turns, and let herself in. Darkness welcomed her, and for once she was thankful she forgot to leave a lamp on before she left.
Inside, she opted for no lights and went straight for the papers hidden in her room. Without the proof and names that were on those papers all this would be for nothing. Her second target was the gun she bought off a punk under a bridge an hour after landing in Chicago and assuming her fake identity. She’d stowed both under the bottom ledge of her dresser the first night Roman had claimed her home as his. Thankfully the piece of furniture had enough space between the floor and baseboard, she reached in and peeled back the edges of duct tape until it relinquished hold over her loot.
Papers and gun in hand, she grabbed a bag and tucked them both inside, then made record time in changing from her soaked dress slacks to a pair of jeans, track shoes, and Roman’s hoodie. One of the few comfort pieces of clothing he’d left on the edge of her bed every morning after showering.
Pressed against the cooled cement of the hallway, Rhia slipped from her room.
Halfway down the hall and she saw it all play out in the split second it took for her front door to implode into a thousand and one shards of lethal stakes.
Fear rattled up her spine and forced her to her knees just beyond the reach of the light from the streetlamps.
Chest tight, she squeezed her eyes shut and shoved her hand into her bag, and tightened her grip on the butt of her gun. If she could steel her nerves long enough to aim, that is. If not, at least she’d get a few rounds off to buy her time to escape.
Glass hailed over her entire living room followed by splatters of bullets. Metal rounds zipped by, nicking her face. She flinched at the searing pain as the lights died.
Multiple bursts of light against the dark landscape of her living room were the only prelude she received before the hail of bullets pelted the inside of her home. Chips of cement rained down over her head and plumes of dust filled her mouth and nostrils. Metal clinked against the flooring, and she dove back into her room. Bullets zipped past her face with tracer tails.
Before she could tuck herself behind the door, fire blazed across the meat of her shoulder, and she cried out just as the terror seized the air in her lungs.
The click of heels and crunching of debris progressed deeper into her apartment.
On hands and knees, she retreated toward the far side of her bedroom and peered out her window.
Streetlights bounced off the rickety old fire escape, and an idea teased her mind. A suicidal one, but at least she had something to go on. She could make it down the one flight of stairs before the creaking and clanking gave her position away, but she’d be a sitting duck while she climbed down.
“Come on out, you little bitch. I just want to give you a little something for all the shit you caused me.” A familiar voice filtered through the dust and darkness.
The muscles around her spine tightened. Rhia jolted to her knees and glared into the darkness, imagining the deranged look on the murderous blonde’s face.
Bitterness washed over her senses, hitting her nostrils first and leaving a wave of nausea in its wake.
“What the hell, Indigo?”
Bile rose in the back of her throat, making her want to spit the foul taste out.
No mistaking the Irish lilt and from the scattering of metal over the floor Rhia marked the progression of her former friend deeper into her apartment and closer to her position.
Rhia side-eyed the fire escape before drawing her eyes back to the direction of Indigo’s voice.
For the second time that night it boiled down to the lesser of two evils, which had her pinned into the corner of her room.
Rhia changed tactics from defensive to offensive. She whirled, gun up and hammer cocked. All hell was about to break loose.