Page 40 of His Master

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I pulled the phone away and ended the call, then grabbed Simon’s hand again and started for the stairs off to the side.

“What did Vincent have to say?” Artemis asked as I hurried Simon down one floor to the level where my office was located.

“That was the police,” I said in dark tones.

“Shit, Victor,” Artemis said, falling into step with Simon between us again as we hurried down the hallway toward my office. “This is getting far more serious than a little corporate douchery.”

I didn’t say anything, but I definitely agreed with him. There was more going on than just Uncle Vincent trying to remove me from any position at the company. Whatever move he was making, whatever counteractions he’d been taking as I’d worked to minimize his influence within the company, I had the sinking feeling it extended beyond this building.

Those suspicions grew when we rounded the corner and saw the closed door to my office guarded by two more thugs in security uniforms.

I stopped dead and cursed inwardly. Uncle Vincent was playing hardball.

“This way,” I said, wheeling back, then heading through the door into one of the service stairways.

“What’s going on?” Simon asked as we charged into the echoey, metal and concrete staircase and headed down.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Not for sure, but I don’t want to stick around here to find out.”

“It’s likely to be some sort of trap,” Artemis agreed.

I nodded as we descended the stairs as fast as possible. “I need to know what’s going on, but I don’t want to stick around here, where my uncle clearly plans to corner me, to find out.”

“Smart,” Artemis said.

We descended two more floors, but I could tell that Simon wasn’t going to make it the rest of the twenty-odd floors we still had until we reached ground level easily. And besides, chances were someone was waiting for us on the ground anyhow.

“Wanna create a diversion?” I asked Artemis, pausing at the next landing we reached.

Artemis smiled, like we were just having fun. “Sure,” he said. “You okay to get out on your own?”

I glanced to Simon, who watched me exactly like I’d ordered him to as my slave. The trust and hope in his eyes was humbling.

We were going to get out of here in one piece no matter what it took. I wouldn’t let my omega be stuck in danger for any longer than he needed to be.

“Yep,” I said, glancing back to Artemis. “I need to figure out what’s really going on here. And I need to make contact with Vivien to see if she knows.”

“Gotcha,” Artemis said, nodding. “With any luck, the rest of the building doesn’t know what’s going on yet. I don’t think anyone expected this to turn so action-movie-ish so fast.”

“I’m going to stop it from heading that way,” I said, then clapped Artemis on the shoulder. “Stay safe, okay?”

“You know it,” Artemis said, thumping my arm, then heading for the door that would take him into one of the other offices. “I’ll see what I can find out that might help you, too. You know I’m on your side.”

“I do,” I said, then grabbed Simon’s hand again.

Artemis was on my side. He was one of the only true friends I had, and I trusted him.

As Artemis headed into the office on that floor, I led Simon down a few more flights of stairs.

“Are we going all the way down this way?” he asked, panting.

“No,” I said, heading for the door three floors down from where Artemis had parted ways with us. “If they’re waiting and watching for us to leave, they will expect us to come out on street level from this stairway. So we’re going another way.”

I headed pulled at the door of the floor we’d just reached, thanking my lucky stars that it wasn’t one of the floors where thefire escape doors were kept locked. Most of them were, but both Artemis and I had gotten lucky, which was encouraging.

The reason the door wasn’t locked was because the floor we stepped out onto was under construction. I recognized at once what used to be the offices of an accountancy firm that had gone out of business. Someone else had clearly claimed the space. Everything was covered with plastic drop-cloths and the sound of a worker’s radio blared from the far side of the space.

I took Simon around the outer edge of the room to the open door that led to the hallway where the banks of ordinary elevators stood. One of the workers noticed us crossing through the space, but he only watched us, baffled, instead of saying anything.

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