Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
The limo flipped, rolled. She felt the lancing heat of flames burning through the air, heard the shattering of glass.
The crunch of metal. Again and again, the limo rolled.
The wine and the glasses in the back on the limo’s bar slammed into the floorboard, then the roof, sending chunks of glass flying into the air.
A piece sliced across her hand, another across her neck, and the slashes happened in an instant.
Everything happened in a timeless instant.
The rolling. The fire. The crash and shatter of glass and metal. Then…
Atlas was roaring her name.
He’d tried to curl his body around hers during the violent upheaval, but they’d been tossed around like dolls, and the fire was raging, coming from the front of the vehicle.
Still. They went still, freezing with a hard shudder while the car was upside down.
Lily found herself on top of Atlas, and blood dripped near her eye, she could feel it. His hands were on her waist, so tight. “Atlas?” Lily pushed up. They were—upside down. No, no, the car was upside down. The floorboard above them. The roof beneath them.
A growl broke from Atlas.
Smoke poured in from the front of the vehicle. Smoke and flames. The window between the front and the back of the limo had never risen back up fully, and the smoke and flames spilled in from the front. The front. Carl? Automatically, she glanced toward the front.
“Get…out,” Atlas gasped.
Her stare whipped back to him.
His eyes were open. He had blood on his right cheek. A long slice. His fingers were tight bands around her waist. “Get…out, Lily.”
She bounded off him. But before she could do more than that, he’d locked an arm around her waist. He shoved at the door to the side. It was jammed, didn’t open, and the smoke in the back grew so thick that she started to cough. And the flames—Lily could hear them crackling up front.
What happened? Why is the car on fire?
He kicked harder at the door. Yelled in fury and shoved even as he kept a tight hold on her with one arm.
The door opened.
“Atlas!” Desmond was there. Standing just beyond the open door. Wide-eyed. Frantic. He grabbed her. Grabbed for Atlas.
They tumbled away from the vehicle, and she looked back to see that the front of the now upside-down limo was blazing. The hood, the engine area—it had ignited. The front seat was full of smoke and flames and—“Carl!” Lily screamed.
Atlas pushed her back. “Get away! Get away from the flames! We’ll get him!”
They would all get him. She scrambled to help.
Atlas shoved her back once more. “Lily, dammit, no! I need you safe! Get to Desmond’s car!”
“Left my phone there,” Desmond shouted. “Grab it. Call for help!”
He and Desmond barreled toward the front of the limo.
Her breath shuddered out. Fury and fear battled inside of her. They were punching at the glass. The car was upside down, and Atlas was trying to slide in the driver’s window in order to get Carl while the flames just burned higher.
A bomb? Did the killer set this, too? And if so, there could be another one waiting to explode. One near the gas tank, and if it erupted or if the fire spread, then the car could go up completely, with Atlas inside of it and…
She stumbled back. Help. She’d call for help.
Her new phone was somewhere in the back of the limo, so she had to use Desmond’s.
Carl was going to need EMTs. Swiping at the blood on her forehead, the blood that wanted to drip into her eye, she darted for the nearby sedan.
Desmond’s car. The driver’s side door was open. She reached inside.
And she felt a little sting in her side. Just a prick. There one moment. Gone the next. Automatically, she swatted with her hand toward the sting—
Felt a syringe. She glanced down and saw the syringe. The needle. It had gone in her side.
“I think they’ll get him out, Lily,” a low voice told her. “And we really have to hurry.”
The…the hell they did. She grabbed for that open car door, her body slumping toward it even as the man holding her tried to haul her back.
Her strength was waning, a weight settling over her, but even as darkness pulled at her, she grabbed that door…
And hauled it shut on the hand that held her. She slammed it into him. Trying to crunch his bones. Trying to hurt him.
“Fucking bitch…”
You have no idea. Her last thought. When she woke up again—if she woke up—then he’d learn that she was truly her mother’s daughter.
Flames bit at his hands. Atlas ignored the flash of fire and grabbed tightly to Carl’s shoulders. He’d had to break the driver’s side window and crawl in to reach the man, and Carl was out cold, no help at all.
The flames had been flying over Carl’s shirt, his chest, and Atlas had slapped at them, and now he was going to haul Carl out of there. Dammit, he was getting Carl out.
“Pull!” Atlas bellowed.
Desmond had a grip around his waist and his friend hauled back with all of his strength, yanking Atlas out and, since Atlas was not letting go of Carl, pulling the driver out, too.
As soon as they were clear of the car, he and Desmond grabbed Carl. They carried the unconscious man away from the growing flames. Cars were screeching to a halt near them. Reporters jumping from their vehicles. People filming frantically with their phones and camera equipment.
Filming. Not helping. “Call nine-one-one!” Atlas shouted at them. Were any of the reporters listening to him?
He spread Carl’s body on the ground. A big gash poured blood from the man’s forehead, and blisters had already risen on Carl’s chest and arms. His pant legs had been eaten away by the flames, but they’d gotten Carl out before those flames raged out of control.
Atlas’s gaze cut back to the car. What in the hell happened?
“What in the hell happened?” Desmond demanded, voice low, as his question echoed Atlas’s thoughts. “I was behind you. Things were normal one moment, and then the limo was flipping the hell over the next minute as flames poured from the front.”
The reporters pressed in closer.
“It was an explosion,” Atlas said. Then, dammit, because he didn’t want one of those jerks with their phones and cameras getting killed right in front of him, he loudly announced, “I think it could have been a bomb.” A bomb that had been placed under the front of his limo.
“So back the hell away from the vehicle!” Atlas shouted at the reporters.
“There could be another one! And don’t you all see the flames? Dammit, get back!”
They scuttled back. Finally. Atlas yanked off part of his shirt and tried to apply pressure to Carl’s head wound. His stare whipped around the crowd again. Lily—had she gone to seek shelter in Desmond’s car? He couldn’t see her. “I need you to get eyes on her,” he said to his friend.
Desmond frowned, then glanced over his shoulder.
“I need you to stay with Lily.” No, more than that. “Take her home. Please, man. Get her to safety.”
“You coming with us?”
“I can’t leave him.” Was an ambulance coming? “Did someone call the fucking police?”
As if in answer, a siren screamed in the distance.
His breath shuddered out. “Get Lily out of here.” Because this place was a circus. Far too dangerous and…
A bomb under my limo?
Desmond rose.
Atlas’s hand flew out and curled around Desmond’s wrist. “What if there is a bomb on your ride, too?”
“We don’t know it was a bomb, not yet.”
His instincts screamed that it had been. “You think cars just ignite for shits and giggles? Because this has never happened to me before.”
Desmond’s expression became even grimmer.
“You keep your car parked in the same garage with my limo.” Atlas tried to keep his voice low now, but he feared the reporters were picking up every single word. “Yours could have been tampered with, too.” Fuck me, I sent Lily to Desmond’s car!
“Hell.” Desmond’s hands fisted.
Yes, the fire made him feel like he was in hell.
Carl groaned.
“It’s okay,” Atlas told him. “Help is coming.”
“What do you want me to do?” Desmond pushed. “Do you want me to drive her out of here or—”
“Just get her. Make sure she’s safe.” They’d figure it out. The cops were coming. They could get a ride in a patrol car if necessary. But—"I need eyes on Lily. Now.”
Desmond bounded off. He shoved through the pack of reporters.
“What happened, Atlas?”
“Are you hurt?”
“Who is the injured man?”
“Where is Lily Gallo?”
The questions fired at him, and he ignored them as he focused on Carl. The man’s eyes cracked open, and he groaned again, the sound heavy with pain. As he woke up, the pain from his burns had to be careening through him.
“Lily Gallo was in the limo with you!”
Yes, he was aware. She’d been in the limo, telling Atlas that she loved him. Explaining that love wasn’t always perfect and sweet. Not soft and gentle.
She’d also been telling him that she knew who the killer was.
“Where is Lily?” A sharp question from one of the reporters.
“She’s safe,” he snapped back. Lily was safe. Desmond was getting her.
The wail of sirens grew louder. He looked up and saw the flash of lights approaching. An ambulance. A police cruiser. A fire truck.
“She’s not here!” Not a reporter’s voice—Desmond’s voice. He pushed through the crowd even as the ambulance braked nearby. “Atlas, she’s not here!”
Atlas felt something rip apart inside of himself. He leapt to his feet even as EMTs barreled toward Carl. They grabbed for Carl.
Two grabbed for Carl. One grabbed for Atlas. “Sir, sir, you’re bleeding, and you have burns—”
He broke away from the EMT and raced toward Desmond.
Desmond’s eyes were wide. Wild. “She wasn’t at my car. Her ring—her ring was on the ground.” He lifted his hand and the sapphire and diamond ring rested in his palm.
Lily’s engagement ring.
The ring with the tracker so that he could always find Lily.