“Damian!”
He looked back, saw her crouched on the floor with Charlotte. Her face was surprisingly calm, her eyesbright.
“Stay put,” he said. “I’llbeback.”
He followed Christophe into the stairwell and down the stairs. They flanked the door to the empty lobby — there was no need for a receptionist in an office that required a palm scan for entry — and Damian counted down their coordinated movement throughthedoor.
They burst into the lobby. It was quiet, no sign of the assault that was taking place on the secondfloor.
“Tell me about the buildings around this one,” Damian said as they headed fortheexit.
“They’re mostly empty,” Christophe said, “And only one of them has more than onestory.”
He and Christophe were thinking the same thing: the shots fired into the second floor exterior wall could only have come from an adjoining building with a secondfloor.
“Where is it?” Damian asked as they flanked the exit in the same formation they’d used to enter thelobby.
“Across thestreet.”
Damian counted down and they stepped into the small alley that led to the lab’s entrance. It wasempty.
“Let’s go,” Damian said, already heading for thestreet.
He half expected to be picked off by a sniper on their way across the street, but it was quiet except for the distant sound of sirens headingtheirway.
They hurried toward a crumbling brick building across the street, each of them covering different angles, watching the windows of the adjoining buildings for movement that never came. If Damian’s head hadn’t been dripping blood, he almost would have thought he’d imagined the wholething.
The sirens grew louder as they reached the main floor of the abandonedbuilding.
They stepped carefully into the shadowed recesses, trying to be quiet as they stepped over loose floorboards and trash left behind by vagrants and partying teenagers on their way to a staircase that didn’t look like a sure thing. The smell of mildew and old wood assaulted his nose as they approached the base of thestairs.
Christophe pointed to the rotting wood on one of the treads. Damianshrugged.
There was only one way up, and up was the only way to see if the assholes who had shot at them — and their women — were stillthere.
Damian led the way, stepping carefully on each tread, trying to minimize the creaks and groans of the rotting wood. He hesitated when he came close to the top of the staircase. There would be a split second when he wasn’t covered, when there would be no choice but to step into whatever was waiting on the secondfloor.
He waited for Christophe to catch up and hurried up the last few steps with his gundrawn.
He was standing on what looked like the landing of an old apartment building, the plaster walls long ago crumbled, exposing the rooms on the other side of the landing. As with the ground floor, there were broken bottles and empty food containers, used condoms and an occasionalneedle.
He started for the front of the building. It was the only place the gunfire could have originated. He had just stepped over the threshold of what must have been a front-facing apartment when he spotted the shell casings shimmering on the ground in front of thewindow.
“They’re gone,” Damian said, lowering his weapon as Christophe enteredtheroom.
“Son of a bitch…” Christophe bent down and picked up one of the empty casings. “Whodidthis?”
The walls were closing in on Damian. All he could see was Aria’s face after she’d met with Primo, her insistence that no one had followed her after theirmeeting.
She was probably right. She probably hadn’t beenfollowed.
But Primo knew she was in Paris. That meant he knew Damian was inParistoo.
Damian turned to Christophe. “I need to tell yousomething.”