Page 2 of Freeing Savannah

The tempo built, and she saw the final message flash on the screen.

Nail that last chord!

The words burned into her vision, lingering like smoke even as they disappeared. She finally understood this wasn’t a hoax. It clicked then as she remembered the first message about an explosive performance.

She’d played this concerto a hundred times. But tonight, the notes didn’t feel like music.

They felt like a weapon.

This performance was wired to kill, and she was playing for their lives.

She scanned the crowd with her peripheral vision. The audience was rapt. Smiling. Unaware. The President of the United States sat in the box above, flanked by Secret Service agents and dignitaries, oblivious to the fact that her piano might be wired to explode.

Her pulse beat louder than the music in her ears.

She couldn’t stop, couldn’t lift her hands.

The weight of her fingers on the keys was the only thing holding the building together.

She didn’t know how they did it. She didn’t know how the piano became the trigger, or who planned this, or how close they were.

But she did know one thing. It couldn’t end this way. Not now. Not when she’d finally found her forever with Sawyer.

He’d tried to protect her. God, he tried. Through the espionage, the sabotage, the attack in Azerbaijan. Every disaster on this tour, he was there, steady and sharp. Just a step ahead of the chaos. He’d been her rock, her support, her everything, through thick and thin. He was the one who provided her with the strength and resilience to make it through everything tour had thrown at her.

And now?

Now she was alone. Hands trembling over a bomb disguised as a Steinway, notes suspended in a silence too perfect to be real. Her pulse beat louder than the music in her ears as the end of the piece drew near.

She reached the final measure. Her pinky struck the last note.

A soft click echoed beneath the keys. The iPad flickered once more, and a timer blinked onto the screen.

00:20:00

00:19:59

A countdown.

The crowd erupted in applause, oblivious.

LET THAT LAST CHORD RESONATE.

OTHERWISE . . . BOOM!

Savannah didn’t move.

The piano had become a bomb. And if she lifted her hands or her feet, the building would explode. She couldn’t pinpoint whether the keys or the pedal triggered the start of the countdown, but either way, she’d keep both pressed down.

Sawyer usually stood in the wings, and she was worried the Secret Security agents had cleared the backstage area. The others on Sawyer’s team were probably scattered around the venue. Maybe compromised. Maybe worse.

She wanted to scream, to cry, to run. But she couldn’t do any of those things. Her hands remained on the keys, sweat trickling down her spine, a breath caught in her chest.

This wasn’t the end of a tour.

It was the beginning of something much, much darker.

And somewhere in the shadows, she hoped—prayed—he was still watching.

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