Chapter 21 · Wrong Buttons

The boot scraped again. Right outside the heavy steel.

I stopped breathing.

The counting room was dead black. The dehumidifier had cut out when the monitors died, leaving a silence that felt twice as loud as a gunshot. Dominic’s mouth hovered an inch from my ear. His palm rested flat against the small of my back, searing right through the silk slip Gia had lent me.

The pistol he’d shoved into my grip was still slick and warm from his skin.

"Both hands," he murmured. "Keep your elbows tucked. Don't aim at the knob. Aim center-mass."

"I know how to hold a piece."

"You know how to run an adding machine."

"Dominic."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

A rough breath hitched in his chest—almost a laugh. His thumb dragged up my spine. My whole body tightened up. Figures. We were two seconds from getting clipped and my nervous system was still making terrible life choices.

Smoke drifted through the ceiling vent. Bitter, sour, like wet pine on a smothered hearth. My eyes burned.

The lever handle clicked.

Slow. Deliberate. A guard wouldn't have crept in like that.

Dominic stepped around me. I didn't see it so much as feel it—