Chapter 59
FIFTY-NINE
Harry
My palms are red and tight, throbbing with their own heartbeat. Heat rushes up my arms, and I feel the blaze growing behind me. A sudden lick of fire kisses my hand, my flesh bubbling as I slam my shoulder into Richard’s office door.
I growl through hissed teeth until, finally, it springs open in a blinding puff of smoke.
Through the dark, orange cloud of lingering fire, I see Andy strapped to the desk, shaken, exhaling fragile, broken breaths against the suffocating air. I’m at his side in an instant, scanning him for injury.
Bruises litter his skin, but seemingly nothing worse than what he’s dealt with before. Though the act of being in Richard’s clutches again has him shrinking into his usual state of terror. He didn’t even attempt to escape.
Eyes half-lidded, he raises them to me and blinks hard. “Am I dead?”
“Not yet, mate,” I say, slinging his arm over my shoulder and steadying him on his feet. “Can you walk?”
He nods stiffly.
The commotion from the fire gives us enough leeway to slip out undetected, the halls thick with screams and the wrath of arson. I avoid the fleeing recruits, helping Andy through the courtyard and into the back seat of the G-Wagon.
His knuckles whiten on the edges of the seat, a hiss slipping past his mouth.
I whip my head towards the tree line. I can hear Richard’s voice through the clearing, screams, hundreds of footsteps, and people running. Gigi could be in that commotion, but Andy needs someone to ground him.
“Go,” he demands, his voice shaky.
“I won’t leave you.”
“Harry.” His face turns stern. “Go get her.”
Fuck. My legs shake from the demand to find Gigi. “You’ll be okay in here?”
“I’ll be fine.”
I retrieve my keys, closing them in his palm. “If anything happens, you fucking drive out of here. I’ll find you, I promise.”
He nods barely, and suddenly, I’m palming his neck, kissing his temple the way brothers do. When I pull back, there’s a faint smile pulling at his lips.
“Don’t do that again,” he says.
“You liked it, and you know it.”
His smile tilts the tiniest bit further.
After checking on him one final time, I run in the opposite direction.
The night is dark, and I’m sprinting blind, the lights coming from within the headquarters too blinding for me to make out anything other than the stone fortress.
Smoke reaches the sky, windows shattering in the far distance from the heat of the fire.
“GIGI!” I shout. “Where are you?”
The rattling fear has me running straight into something hard. The person falls to the ground with an oomph as I barely right my balance.
“Ouch,” Gigi groans.
I pull her up quickly, not able to do anything but fucking kiss her. My mouth meets hers with a force so delirious, in my attempt to make sure this is real, that she’s forced to back up as I keep striding towards her, cupping her cheeks.
She kisses me back fiercely, humming into my mouth, hands palming the sides of my neck. I groan against her lips, pushing my chest against hers just to feel her beating heart, even if it means she’s forced to crane her neck.
She separates our mouths, breathless.
“Hudson,” is all she says.
I draw my head back, because I know she didn’t just kiss me and have that fucker’s name be the first thing to leave her mouth.
“Respectfully, my love, you have three seconds to explain yourself before—”
“Hudson,” she says again. “Richard’s taken him.”
I blink, bewildered, then shake my head. We barely survived today as it is. I’m not risking hers or Andy’s life again. Hudson could die a long, painful death and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
“Gigi, no.”
“They’ll torture him.”
I shrug. “So be it.”
I start retreating to the car, holding onto her hand.
She digs her heels in.
I turn round. Her hands on my chest push me away just enough that she can look into my eyes.
“He helped me get out. We can’t just leave him there – it makes us no better than Richard and his men.”
I circle her wrists with my palms, holding her still. “The stuff he witnessed, and the torment he let you suffer – leave him.”
“He saved my life.” She twists her captured wrist enough to wrap her fingers round my arm. “Richard will still live. He’ll make a new trafficking ring if we don’t put an end to this.”
“I. Choose. You.”
“Harry …”
“I can’t lose you again.”
But the effort to get through to her is useless. I vowed to never fail her again, and this is no different. She’s already made up her mind.
“I want you in every lifetime, Harry, but I can’t find peace in this one knowing there are still things I need to fix. I love you. God, I love you so much, but we have to do what’s right.”
“I fucking hate you.”
She smiles. “No, you don’t.”
I turn my head over my shoulders slowly, looking back at the Circle headquarters, taking a moment to take it all in. Could we really do it? Could we end it together?
I turn back to Gigi. Her brown eyes are wide, fixed on the chaos of the fire and what lies inside. Her chest rises and falls fast, as if Richard is already inside her lungs, choking her. Her fingers tremble against her Glock as she draws it from her trousers.
Behind her eyes, I catch a glimpse of something veiled and black. Memories of her insanity she’s buried.
“They deserve every shred of the monster you’re afraid of.”
She meets my eye, and I tuck a loose strand behind her ear.
“Don’t forget what you’re capable of,” I say. “I’ll bring you back from the darkness.”
I press my forehead to hers, our war raging just a breath apart, her body leaning into me. After a moment, she lets out a long breath, cracking her neck like she’s waking something up inside of her.
“Let’s go,” she says.
We head back to the perimeter fence, and I help Gigi over it. She lands, peering back at me. I’m tall enough to run up and grip the top, clutching the biting wires. My weight strains my biceps as I pull myself over, landing beside her.
A relieved breath falls from her throat, as if she thought I might stay behind. Stupid, stupid girl.
We run through the woods, back into the belly of the Circle headquarters. An outer wall is crumbling from the heat, a chunk of the north wing spread across the courtyard. Rubble lines the ground, pavements burning to a crisp. We crawl through a shattered service corridor, ducking low.
Alarms scream in every direction, but the fire gives us cover. While everyone else is running out, we’re rushing in. I hover to a crouch, pulling Gigi through the remainder of the way, hearing merciless gunfire echo deep in the halls.
She turns to me. “Was that not you?”
I shake my head. “The recruits must be fighting back.”
We move down the blackened hallway, the firelight casting hellish shapes on the walls. Smoke clings to my throat, my shirt sticking to my back with sweat, still drenched with the smell of petrol.
We duck into the shadows as a patrol sprints past. I can feel the heat from the fire licking my back, beading my neck with moisture.
Gigi swipes sweat from her forehead. “Did you really have to set the whole place on fire?”
“I had my reasons.”
A figure bursts from a side room. I barely see the glimmer of metal before I’m snapping my hand out sideways, curling it round a knife mid-air, inches from Gigi’s face. Blood seeps down my forearm, venomous anger coursing through my body.
The man, dressed in security uniform, is already staggering backwards, fear drenching his every feature. I launch the knife. It wails as it cuts through air, impaling his arm with a precision that pins him to the wall.
He lets out a helpless yelp as I get closer, drawing my own dagger from its sheath. I flip it once in my hand, a darkness washing over me.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“No, no, no – wait, please—”
His plea abruptly ends as I drive the knife directly into the side of his neck. It protrudes through his skin, coming out the other side. He chokes on the metal, blood staining his teeth.
An echo of footsteps has me spinning round.
Two guards charge at Gigi. I step forward to help and then … stop.
She’s pure instinct, violence and beauty wrapped in a ribbon, as she fights ruthlessly.
I move, taking out a man to her right, but I can’t stop watching her. She’s graceful. Brutal. She doesn’t flinch; she relishes in it.
Where I’d drag the knife down, she drives it deeper, twisting.
A blade appears in her hand, vanishing into a man’s throat. Blood splatters the concrete, the walls, her jaw. She doesn’t flinch.
One man gets a grip on her arm. She twists under it, her elbow plunging into his throat so hard I hear the cartilage crush.
Christ, I’m so turned on right now.
She draws out her gun, aiming it straight at me. The bullet wooshes past me sideways, clipping my ear, that desire suddenly spindling low as every breath loosens from my body. Slowly, I turn as another man bucks to his knees before tumbling sideways.
I exhale an exaggerated breath, turning back round.
“I’d happily take a bullet for you, baby,” I say, “but warn me next time, yeah?”
She smiles, slipping the gun back into her trousers.
She takes the lead, guiding me down the hall. We reach a lone metal door at the end of the hall – a heavy, disastrous thing that definitely wasn’t erected when I was here last. It’s raised slightly, enough for us to lower to the floor and army-crawl under it.
Hudson is bound to a steel beam in the centre of the open arena, shirtless, bleeding, bruised like Richard meant it. Even with his world collapsing round him, he still had enough time to exact his revenge.
“You go,” I tell Gigi.
She moves past me, straight to Hudson. His head jerks up, one eye swollen shut, blood crusting his mouth. His dark eyes move from Gigi to me, disbelieving.
I guard the door, adrenaline spiking my pulse. I dart my attention between the exit and them both as she undoes his restraints, sawing through them with her blade. With each second, I feel the thrum of danger in my veins.
How much time do we have?
Is Andy safe on his own?