Page 86 of King of Cruelty

Nothing.

“Come on,” I hissed at the strobe alarms attached to the wall. “Light up! Sound off! Do something!”

They didn’t do a thing, clueing me to the horrible truth that the fire alert system was also hooked up to the main security system, and it was also offline.

Bang!

My head snapped up, getting level with the gun peeking through the busted window. The brother adjusted his aim to try again.

I took off, racing around the staircase and the little cover it provided, to fall on the elevator.

“Open!” I jammed the button.

Thud! Thud!

“Get that door open!”

Thud! Thud!

“Hurry up!”

“Open!”

The elevator dinged, chirping its arrival.

I forced inside and jammed it shut again, screaming when I heard my offline brass and steel fail me.

“Get after her!”

A flash of moving, shoving bodies appeared through the slats of the stairs. I flung back against the wall, stabbing that stupid close button like my life depended on it—because it did!

“Close!” The doors slowly inched back together. “Fucking close!”

They raced at the elevator, blasting it with their guns.

I fell to the ground screaming, covering my head as a chorus of ricocheting metal played its deadly tune.

Through my arms, I saw the tattoo lady break from the pack. Sprinting across the concrete, she jammed her hand in the way of the doors, triggering the automatic safety feature that made them reopen at the first hint of obstruction.

“Agghhhhh!”

The metal closed shut on her fingers, breaking all the little bones with audible, and horrifying, crunches.

Or not.

Her screams bounced through the stairwell and leaked into my little windowless box, stirring the faintest dredges of sympathy for her.

It looked like taking all the security measures offline really got rid ofallthe measures. Poor little Tattoo Lady shouldn’t havebeen so eager to get a gold sticker from Mom. Now all she was getting was a cast and, oh yeah, blown up—Mommy Deb’s final gift to her loyal followers.

“Wow,” I breathed, chest heaving as the elevator rose... taking her hand with it. I looked away as we left her floor behind, and took her fingers with us. “Shake it off, Blaine.” I slapped my cheeks, beating back the shock. “You’ve got her phone. Do something clever with it!”

I flicked down, wondering just what the hell that was.

Natalya clearly had time to summon the lower-tier brothers in between tying up my boyfriends and their family. Should I send them a text from Debra telling them there’s a change in plan?

I immediately rejected that idea. All it would take is anotherwhere the hell are you?text from Natalya, and they’d all hop back in their cars again. I had to do something to disrupt their plans because they already had two-thirds of what they needed before moving on to the blowing-us-all-up stage of the plan. Once they—

The answer hit me like a brick to the head.

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