Chapter 25 · Crosshairs in the Dark

The Humvee slammed the front gates like a freight train.

I felt the hit through the marble floor. Up through my bare soles, my shins, the roots of my teeth. Outside, two tons of wrought iron ripped out of concrete with a sound like tearing sheet metal.

"Thirty minutes," I said. My voice sounded stripped and hollow. The red countdown on the tablet in my hands flickered, shaved off four minutes in a blink, and kept dropping. "It was higher ten seconds ago. Dante, it just skipped."

"I see it." He snatched the screen from my grip and shoved it under his arm. "Move."

"Don't just bark at me. Where?"

"Away from the fucking glass."

He didn't wait for an answer. His fingers locked around my wrist—hard, calloused, hot enough to burn. He yanked me out of the foyer's open center toward the sweep of the double staircase.

Same wrist. Same bruising grip he'd used to pin me to our mattress on our wedding night.

Totally different reason.

My chest hitched, tangled between panic and something vicious I couldn't afford to name.

Twin headlights sliced through the two-story arched windows. One sweep of blinding white, then another.