Page 95 of Explode
Spinning back around, I froze at the sight of Owen’s gun pressedagainst Sofia’s head, her eyes wide with fear as an anguished sob left her mouth. Behind him, the door opened, spilling sunlight into the hallway, and a masked figure appeared, his gun raised. Dread pooled in my belly at the sight.
We were all about to die.
But the feeling of dread grew when the masked figure lowered hisgun.
“Owen, hurry the fuck up, we need to get out of here,” the maskedfigure shouted.
As comprehension dawned, the guard whose nose I’d hopefullybroken, grabbed me. “You’ll pay for that, you little bitch,” he hissed in my ear.
“Don’t worry, she’ll get what’s coming to her when Hendrix gets hishands on her,” Owen sneered.
Oh, fuckety fuck.
Owen had sold us out.
A weight as heavy as a lead balloon landed in my stomach.
“Come on, we need to go!” the masked man roared, holding the dooropen.
Once again, Owen started dragging Sofia, and the dickhead holdingme followed. Despite the panic clawing its way up my throat, I didn’t resist his pull. How could I? Not with the gun pressed against Sofia’s head.
Memories of the time Hendrix dragged me from the panic roomsprung to life, and the image of my former maid’s head exploding circled in time with the nausea churning my belly.
This was how the night Kai ‘died’ started. With me coming out of thepanic room because I didn’t want my friends getting hurt, and now here we were again, like lambs to the slaughter.
I prayed Sofia wouldn’t meet the same fate as Jacqueline.
As we reached the door, the masked man held it open to reveal thedying sunset in the distance behind him. The lead balloon in my stomach doubled inside at the realization Owen was taking us outside.
Fuck. That wasn’t good.
Owen pushed Sofia through the door, and I heard her terrified gasp. Itdidn’t take long to see why when I was pushed through the door, following in her steps.
A van was waiting, the back doors wide open ready for us to bebundled in, and there were two more armed men wearing balaclavas. They stepped forward, one grabbed Sofia, and one grabbed me, roughly pulling us out of Owen’s and the other guard’s hands.
“Wait,” Owen shouted, trying to grab Sofia back. “She wasn’t part ofthe deal. Hendrix agreed I could keep her if I brought you the Wolfe bitch!”
“He lied,” the man who had held the door open said with zeroremorse in his tone. The next second, he raised his gun and fired a bullet into Owen’s head, his body crumbling to the floor in an instant. The man turned, and in quick succession fired another bullet into the head of the guard who’d dragged me.
“No!” Sofia screamed, more tears streaming down her face. Funnilyenough, I didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for Owen, or the other asshole.
“Get them in, and get the fuck out of here, the boss is waiting,” theman who’d just shot Owen barked.
The two men holding Sofia and me lifted us off the ground, and withinseconds we were thrown in the back of the van, and the doors slammed shut, plunging us into darkness. Moments later, the engine roared to life, and the van started moving.
My heart beat frantically in my chest as the sounds of gunshotsechoed around outside. When a couple of bullets hit the side of the van, Sofia squealed. Moving to sit next to her, I pulled her into my arms and held her. Her whole body trembled as sobs wracked her body.
My own fear had turned to numbness. Numbness with memories ofhow all familiar this felt. The last time I’d been taken, Kai had come to my rescue and he’d died, or at least, I thought he had. But what if he came to my rescue again and this time, he really did die?
I didn’t think my heart could take losing him a second time.
“I’m…I’m so..sorry, Riley,” Sofia sobbed, her tears soaking my top.
“Sssh, it’s not your fault,” I said, stroking a hand down her arm.
“It is!” she cried, pulling out of my grasp. “I….I lied earlier.” I couldbarely make out her features in the dark, but I could see enough to know she’d turned her head away in shame. “I did tell Owen about the deal. I was so angry with my father that I told him everything. About how you refused to marry Rafe because you were married to a dead man, how Milo put himself forward to marry me. And…I told him about Hendrix, about why you were asking for the deal in the first place.”
I closed my eyes as disappointment filled me. Not that I blamed her,she had every right to be angry with Mr. Bianchi. If I’d been dating someone and been forced to end it because my dick of a father had given my hand in marriage to someone else, I’d probably have blabbed too.
