33. Kiera
KIERA
I peered over Dom’s shoulder, trying to see if our creepy clown was following us, but it was no use; everything was lost in the blur of her movement. I didn’t gain my bearings until I heard familiar wooden floors groaning under her thundering footsteps.
She bounded up the saloon stairs like they were nothing, closing the distance between us and our safety in a matter of seconds. I gripped tightly to her neck, letting her strong arms hold me close until the safehouse door slammed shut, the shutters locking right behind them.
Seconds. Mere seconds had separated us from being locked out of the safehouse with whatever the fuck that creep was.
And as she dropped my feet to the ground, I knew that fact wasn’t lost on Dom.
Miraculously, we’d all made it back. Spencer hunched over with her hands on her thighs while Leo kneeled to check on a panting Lady. And while Dom seethed, clearly ramping up for some righteous monologue, I whipped around to give her a piece of my mind.
“What the fuck was that? I thought this place was supposed to be safe, Dom.”
Fire sparked behind her icy eyes. “This place,” she gestured wildly around the loft. “This place is safe. I didn’t say jack shit about the park. Which you would have realized if you ever fucking listened.”
“Oh, excuse me for missing the subtext!” I scoffed. “Mind giving the instructions in plain English next time? I’d love to know what rule I broke when a machete-wielding maniac starts hunting me around the park.”
“Must have overestimated your intelligence. I thought the bloody fucking note on the door would be a clear signal to anyone with two brain cells.” Her expression darkened as she stepped closer.
“How about this? Since you can’t use your own common sense, the new rule is to do whatever the fuck I say, whenever the fuck I say it. ”
Bitter laughter burst from my lips. “Oh, you’d just love that, wouldn’t you?”
“If that’s not good enough for you, you could try asking those freaks yourself. I’m sure it’ll be a really productive conversation once they take your tongue.”
A chill ripped down my spine at the idea, but my brow furrowed to hide my fear. “I’m glad you think this is funny, Dom. You know, I’m seeing why you and the Oracle work so well together. Bunch of bird brains, all of you.”
She didn’t have to lay a finger on me for me to feel the rage rolling off her in waves. My hands shook as she towered over me with a scowl, but I clenched them into fists to hide the tremor.
“Fuck what the Oracle thinks, Kiera. When have I ever put you at risk?”
The words slipped between my ribs like a dagger. Under all of her wrath, there was a teenager somewhere deep inside of Dom, terrified by how close she’d just come to losing me.
The realization was a bucket of water over my fury, taking it from a roaring flame to hissing embers in a matter of seconds.
My nose wrinkled as I looked up at her. My mind was racing with plenty of questions, and irritation still thrummed through my veins with each heartbeat.
Everything was too raw right now, though.
I wasn’t ready to give up on getting answers — and I certainly wasn’t agreeing to her stupid fucking rule — but I didn’t need to lay it all out right now.
“Fine, I’m… sorry.” I mumbled, glaring up at her. “But I’m getting tired of this cryptic bullshit. Next time I might die, tell me.”
Dom grumbled incoherently in response before stalking off toward one of the bedrooms, leaving me alone with Spencer and Leo.
I threw my hands up as I faced them, shaking my head with exasperation. But Spencer just shrugged, “That’s some of the best conflict resolution I’ve seen from her in years.”
Leo gave Lady a scratch on her head before nodding. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, Princess. Just give it some air, yeah?”
Swallowing down my irritation, I did as Leo suggested, parking my ass on the fancy arm chair and scrolling on my phone, trying to get my mind off of Dom.
Spencer and Leo sat on the living room floor playing Gin Rummy after failing to suck me into another game of Texas Hold ’Em.
And eventually, Dom emerged from her cave with her laptop in hand, sitting stiffly on the couch while she typed away.
God, could she type any louder?
I turned my back to her in my chair, hoping that keeping her out of sight would keep her out of mind. But she was a fucking parasite desperate to consume my every thought.
It’s a wonder she hasn’t pulverized that keyboard.
With a sigh, I tried desperately to tune her out, scrolling on social media for something more engaging than her clacking. But just as I was starting to get drawn into a sweet video about a small-town animal shelter, a text slid across the top of my screen: my mother.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I pulled down on the message, expanding another plea from Maura to meet up. As always, she was full of cryptic warnings; words like “immediately” and “not a joke” were littered through her litany.
Maybe my nerves were still shot from the jump scare back on the fairgrounds, but this time, I had a harder time swiping away her message.
What if something was actually wrong? Was I going to regret pushing her off?
Before I could reason with myself, the sharp tin of carnival music flooded the loft, loud enough to bleed through our metal shutters.
I dropped the phone and cupped my ears, waiting for Spencer or Leo to take over the aux and cover up the sound.
But as they fumbled with their phones, a new sound joined the cacophony outside: screams.
My saviors, usually calm and collected, visibly stiffened at the sound. I couldn’t see shit outside, but I’d bet money those freaks were hunting people. Who, though?
Only Dom seemed unfazed by the noise, as if she’d known all along what they got up to after dark. She didn’t need to open her mouth — the tight set of her lips communicated the I told you so looping through her mind clear as day.
Before I could call her out on her smugness, though, something on her screen made her expression darken. “Shit.”
Everyone turned to face her as she frowned, our mission of covering up the music forgotten. Nothing outside was as scary as the tenor Dom’s voice had taken on.
“What?” Leo furrowed her brows.
“An email from Zeus’ C-suite just came in. They’re launching an IPO.”
“In English?” Spencer frowned.
“They’re going to sell shares of Zeus in the stock market. They’re transitioning from private ownership to public.”
“That might be a good thing, right?” I tilted my head. “Isaac won’t have as much control over the company.”
Dom shook her head. “Isaac’s shares might get diluted, but so will ours. We’ll lose the majority we need to control votes, and he’ll hold on to the sycophants already on the board to sway things in his favor.”
“Fuck,” Spencer murmured. “Does the Oracle—?”
“I’m telling them right now,” Dom muttered as she typed out a message on her phone. “Who knows how long they’ll take to call me back, though.”
“Shit,” Leo’s jaw tensed. Ever the strategist, I could already see her mind running through the logistics. “They haven’t gone public yet though, right?”
“No.” Dom frowned.
“Okay, so we have some time then.” Leo exhaled.
“What do you mean?” I turned to face her, studying the knot forming at her temple.
“If we can get you and Dom into power before the company goes public, then the IPO won’t matter. You can oust Isaac and fix things before your shares ever get diluted. Hell, you could probably stop the IPO altogether.” She turned to Dom. “When is it happening?”
Dom skimmed the email, her jaw tensing. “... It doesn’t say.”
A beat of silence gripped the room before Spencer spoke up. “So we’re racing a ticking time bomb, and we don’t know when it’ll go off?”
“Essentially,” Dom huffed, scrubbing her face with a rough palm.
Spencer looked between Dom and Leo. “Then what’s the plan?”
But all eyes turned to me as I spoke up. “We need to get in contact with the Oracle and finalize an attack plan. And we need to figure out what the fuck Isaac is planning, as quickly as we can.”
Yet even as my captors nodded their agreement, there was one huge question that lingered over all of us: how?