Page 97 of Under Pressure

The men gathered around the door, and Sean looked to Mack and Gray, the team leaders.

“This is all you, chum,” Mack said. “This is your lassie. You give the orders.”

Sean looked at Gray who gave a succinct nod, then Sean gave them the hand signal to enter go inside, an underhanded scoop from back to front with his hand.

“Let’s get her.” Knox gave a blinding smile and jumped up and down in place a couple of times.

Wolfe picked the lock on the door, and opened it—the group started in, but Mack blocked them with an arm.

“Let’s keep the body count to a minimum,” Mack said. “We’re gonna ‘ave enough explainin’ to do as it is.”

Sean nodded and pointed to the doors with two fingers, and the guys fell silent as they opened the doors.

25

Chapter 25

Blue

Blue squirmed in Jonah’s grasp as he held her in front of him like some sacrificial lamb, thumb and fingers jammed up under her jaw so hard, she could feel his nails piercing her skin. “Jonah, don’t do this. You don’t know what will happen to us.”

“He won’t listen, Bluebell,” Dad said.

But she couldn’t stop. She pried at his fingers, and tried to lurch free, but she was well and truly stuck. She only stopped fighting him when the man in the shadows moved. Slowly, like a wraith, he drew her attention, and sent ice through her veins. It couldn’t end like this. Not now! Not after everything they’d been through. After everything they’d lost.

The man slowly closed the distance, his tall frame casting a long shadow. His cheekbones and jaw could cut glass, and even though he was lean, there was muscle under his black three-piece suit—muscle that probably aided in shredding men to pieces with his bare hands. His dark, slicked-back hair spoke of deadly precision, not a hair, article of clothing, or person under his command out of place, and the tattoos on his hands told stories as dark as any reapers—and she didn’t even need to see them to know that. That was just what Made Men did. They marked their conquests in ink for the world to see. As he sauntered forward, she caught sight of shoulder gun holsters under his jacket, each carrying a Glock. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had blades on his person either.

Hewasthe angel of death come to collect her father and deliver her into the hands of The Outfits’ most notorious underboss. The man who made ruthless look placid.

She swallowed hard as he continued his slow, but sure, forward progression, making barely a sound on the cement floors of the building as he moved. When he was about halfway across the space, she spotted a deep scar on his jaw—in the same place where Dominic had been cut on his eighteenth birthday. Her gaze darted up to his eyes, and in the deep indigo blue, the exact shade as her own, she saw a gleam. A sparkle of amusement.

Blue sucked in a breath. “Dom?” she whispered. He was older, so much older, but so was she. How had she missed it? It was so obvious now.

Behind her, Dad heaved in the air as well.

“I got them both, just as you asked,” Jonah told Dom.

Dom passed her and went straight to their dad. He squatted in front of him, and . . .appraisedhim. Dad clenched his jaw, and leaned back—fear and anger rippling through every muscle with such intensity, Blue half expected him to Hulk out of histies. Dom took a puff of his cigarette, stood, and came over to Blue. Her body quivered. Was this still the boy she once knew? Or some mangled version of him?

He looked her over the same way he had their dad. Studying her like she was an insect under glass—it felt like he was looking through her instead of at her. Only as he turned away from her, did she see that twinkle in his eye again. It threw her off, made her stomach lurch as she remembered seeing the same thing in his eyes on multiple occasions when they were kids—when he was being mischievous. Like he knew some secret that no one else knew.

“This isn’t them,” he said to no one in particular as he turned to head off.

“Where are you going?” Jonah called out.

“To see Ian,” Dom said.

Ian.Blue jerked at the name. At the reminder of their friend at the fairgrounds. The one Dom was supposed to kill but didn’t. Was this a message? Was Dom trying to tell her something?

Jonah glanced around at his men, then quickly let go of Blue, rushed forward, and grabbed Dom’s arm. Guns cocked all around them, the click of metal-on-metal echoing through the room audible even in the storm that beat against the skylights. “It is. It’s Ryker and Vittoria Rockefeller!”

Dom glanced down at where Jonah held his arm, then up again. In a slow exhale, Dom puffed smoke in Jonah’s face.

Jonah coughed.

Smiling, Dom started to say something when the bang of a gunshot pierced the air. To Blue’s left, one of Jonah’s men lurched back, his gun flying from his hand. He screamed, cradling his bloody, mangled hand to his chest in the quiet room.

There was a moment of stunned surprise, where all anyone could do was stare, then all heck broke loose: shots went off, and people ran around, ducking for cover, yelling.

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