Page 26 of Sawyer

“You are all crazy.” I step back, turn on my stupid heels, and take off down the hall. I know exactly where my cash is, and with Tomi dead, I’ll get it myself.

Wait. Tomi is dead.

Ever feel that absolute rush of relief? I sway on my feet and slam a palm into the wall. I’m free. Laughter bubbles out of me, and I rush out the door, across the hall, and through a door leading upstairs.

“Sawyer?” Rumor yells, chasing after me. “Sawyer, stop!”

Ignoring him and embracing the adrenaline rushing through my system, I stumble into a long hallway and toward Tomi’s office. Let them follow. Let them see.

Shame burns through me. They’ll see how I got out, but I won’t feel guilt over what I did. I can’t.

I punch in the code to his office and enter. The dumbass always kept it in his phone notebook app, and he never changed it.

The hum of electronics splits the air as I enter and drop my stuff on a cushy desk chair. The room is set up with multiple monitors, several of them showing the poles, a few of the doors, and one of a secret backroom. My knees hit the floor with a thud, and I work to open the safe, ignoring the monitors.

“Now, princess, if I had known you’d be this much fun, I wouldn’t have avoided you for months,” Sin drawls.

“You know where the money is,” Rumor says, but his words are distant, occupied. “Has he been recording you girls?”

Nothing gets past him. “Yes.” Click-click-click.

“Well, now you have a legitimate reason for killing him.” Sin claps. “Destroy everything.”

One more turn, and the safe pops open. Reaching in, I grab the thick white envelope with my name on it. He never intended to pay me for tonight. I knew that and accepted it. Hell, I even knew he’d record me. My price tonight was the cost of information.

“Sawyer, did you know?” Rumor asks. There’s an edge to his voice that wasn’t there moments ago, and I feel bad enough to answer.

“It’s how I got out.” I clench the wad of cash to my chest and look up at him. “I won’t apologize for what I did. I had to get out of here, and the only way out was by—”

“Blackmail.” Sin rips cords out of the wall and tosses them before reaching into a pocket. “Princess, you did what you had to do.” Those green eyes of his see right through me. “Never apologize for surviving.” He looks back at Rumor. “Never.”

There’s so much unspoken there that I’m not going to touch.

Luckily, I don’t have to, because there are sirens in the distance.

“We should go.” Sin sets fire to a trash can full of tissues. Nasty.

“Aren’t you an heir?” I ask him just as Rumor lifts me up by my elbows.

Our entire society used to be run by the councilmen and their heirs, one of which is standing before me. I know all about Sin, even if I didn’t recognize him at first because he looks like hell. Even so, he’s above the law, a politician with the deltas in his pockets.

“I got fired,” he says enthusiastically. “Let’s go.”

Feeling a little better, I rush from the room, clinging to the last dregs of bitter adrenaline. I know that at any moment, everything will rush at me like a tsunami and take me out, but until then, I’m going to cling to what little bit of numbness it provides.

When I’m safe, I can crash, cry, and then wake up and fight like the bitch I know lives inside me.

Outside, cold air slaps me in the face, reminding me that I don’t have any pants on—pants I left up in the office.

“This way.” Rumor grabs my elbow, leading me across the parking lot to where we parked earlier. The beep of his locks is all it takes for my system to crash.

Little by little, I begin to shake, and not from the cold. As I sit on the heated leather seat, the world moves in slow motion, and Rumor starts the engine.

Deltas pull into the lot, their blue lights flashing. Rumor nods at the crowd as they rush into the building.

Drawn to a room on the second floor, I watch flames kiss the window.

Let it burn.

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