“Reuben?” she spoke quietly into the mic. “Anyone?”
“Where are you?” Roark growled.
“Back of building, looking for way in. Place is crawling with cops.”
Jax took the mic and ear bud away. “What happened to Reuben?”
“Don’t know. He’s not wired. Watch out for Ursula. She’s former FSB.”
Roark wasn’t speaking Cajun. That was an ominous sign. Jax narrowed his eyes at the realization that Reuben wasn’t in the van. Then who was? Someone had been feeding Evie information.
They weren’t responding though.
“Here,” Evie whispered, leaning against a patio door and peering in as the first gusts of rain hit.
“Bingo.” Action over worry. Jax took out his gun, rapped the glass beside the lock, and with the security alarm blaring, cleared an opening for his hand and unlocked the latch. They stepped through in a flash of lightning and roll of thunder.
“We’re inside,” he told Roark.
“This is it, VP Bibb’s office. We have a file room,” Evie called, exploring behind a curtain.
From here, they could hear shouts and what might be gunfire. Presumably, security had better things to do than check on a break-in.
“We need a damned flashlight,” Jax muttered as he followed Evie into a room filled with file cabinets. Who on earth kept paper files anymore? He hunted for a light switch. He’d come to rely on his phone too much. Hanging around Evie, he’d have to carry two chargers.
Evie dug through her plastic tote to find her key ring. She flipped on a tiny Maglite and ran it around the walls.
A rapping sound came from behind a panel. “Get me out!” Roark shouted in Jax’s ear.
They pounded on the panel until they found a latch. It swung back to reveal the combination lock.
“One-nine-six-nine,” a voice in his ear repeated as Jax spun the dial.
That voice wasn’t Roark—or Reuben. It sounded distinctly like his sister...
Before Jax could take in this new insanity, the vault door sprang open, and Roark stumbled out, yanking ropes off his arm and feet, with a knife in his hand. He staggered against a filing cabinet for a moment, then shoved out of the room with a small security box under his arm.
Thunder rolled. Alarms blared. Another shot rang out.
“Let’s roll,” Roark roared.
Thirty-three
Blindwith explosive fury and fear, Roark shoved past a stunned Jax and a worried Evie. Ariel frantically tried to communicate in his ear, but as much as Roark was in awe of how much his personal angel had risked, he’d given up on security precautions. This was ending...now.
He’d fought his dad all his life, rebelled against strictures because of him, got blown up and locked in jail, lost his job and his home, and had no life to offer a good woman like Ariel—because of the anger beaten into him by the criminal bully now holding a bunch of crooks hostage. The irony swelled.
He’d already sized up the head honcho’s office before he’d wandered off into the file room and found the vault. He reckoned the FBI would have a real good time with that vault.
His goal now, however, was the fake fireplace he’d uncovered earlier. Without bothering with the nicety of looking for hidden hinges, he ripped the false front off the wall, then smashed his boot into the panel behind it. The destruction didn’t satisfy him. He slammed his shoulder into the drywall of the next room.
“Marlene, swing the chandeliers,” Evie shouted incomprehensibly behind him.
Apparently accepting Roark’s rage, Jax reverted to their commando training. He pried open a light switch panel with his jackknife and used his rubber-soled shoe to rip out and jam the wires together. Electricity arced. Brilliant man.
As the lights blew, screams escalated in the room behind the wall, and chairs scraped.
“Well, now they can’t see the fun chandelier,” Evie griped. “I’ll have to turn on the Tinkerbelles.”