CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CASH
We achieved the chaos we’d planned to evoke, but there is nothing controlled about this moment.
While Jax, Tatum, Maddox, and I were drinking and belting out lyrics, security was banging on the wine cellar door, which we’d secured and blocked. It was both tense and comical as they tried to coax us out of here—tense because Sylvie was clearly on to something even bigger than we realized.
But as soon as Tessa’s voice filtered through the comm, Maddox swung the door open and attempted to barrel through more guards than we’d anticipated.
His knife is out, which is only inflaming the security team, but he’s got zero fucks to give with his wife in peril. And I’m right there with him.
I step forward, both hands up with one in front of his chest, in the hopes of calming everyone. “We’ll pay for everything we drank and tack on a hefty bonus for the inconvenience. But he got a call that his wife is hurt, so—”
“Appreciate that,” one of the guards begins, “but we can’t let you—”
“That’s not a fucking option,” Maddox cuts him off, spinning his Karambit.
And everything unravels in the next ten seconds.
“I’m halfway there, Nightmare,” Sylvie announces. “Climbing through the second transom. Don’t let him move you.”
It’s going to be both of them out there against armed guards when we have men on standby to handle this shit.
“Fuck no, Sly,” I grit out, eliciting bewildered scowls from the guards barricading us and wild eyes from Tatum.
While Maddox, Jax, and I break out of our momentary captivity, Wells and his crew bark orders.
“Stand the fuck down.”
“Stick to the established route.”
“On our way.”
Side-eyeing Maddox so he knows I’m about to move, I take my hand on his chest and shove him backward into the wine cellar. In a flash, I manage to get the door shut, latched, and blocked again.
The guards bang and threaten and fade into background racket.
Tatum appears positively confounded, but my brothers read me.
We dart to the back of the room, behind a rack of wine, where a piece of the wall leads to the escape route Sylvie mentioned during our prep.
We don’t speak. All of us could have doctorates in the inner workings of secret passageways.
So, we spotted it during our dance session.
The hidden entrance is located in a section of the wall that functions on a counterweighted pivot mechanism.
We work together to find the protruding stone that needs to be pushed to disengage the pin holding the door in place.
Then we nudge it open, shut ourselves inside, and dash through the tunnel, shouting directions at the girls.
“I’m coming, baby girl.” Maddox jogs beside me, his face depicting every bit of dread I feel slicing up my insides at the notion of Sylvie and Tessa in danger. “You got this. He doesn’t have control of your mouth. Bite the asshole if you have to.”
“We’re almost there, Sly,” I tack on, hoping she’ll detail her position.
I try to get a visual from her bracelet, but all I can see is a bench or something, and Tessa only has a tracker on her. So, I pocket my phone so it doesn’t slow me down.
Tatum starts spouting questions. “Was this planned? Do you always take adventures like this? You’ll probably get kicked out. Or you won’t. You get away with fucking anything, don’t you?”
Jax answers all of them in one uncharacteristic fluid stream. Vaguely. “Somewhat. We try. Wouldn’t be the first time. Aiming to.”
There’s no way Tatum processed any of that. It would’ve been better for us to leave him in the wine cellar, but decidedly not better for him. Someone will be the object of the guards’ frustration, so we can’t throw him to the wolves.
“I’m here. He’s trying to move her,” Sylvie rasps into the comm, just above a whisper, at the same time as Tessa says something that drowns in the mix of voices.
“One minute out,” Gage responds.
And Zara tacks on, “Coming your way too.”
Noises that are meaningless to us precede a union of gasps, and my internal organs cease to function. All the breath leaves my lungs. I want to tear this escape route apart, brick from brick.
“Sly? Talk to me, baby.” I sprint in a blind rage as Maddox yells similar demands to Tessa.
“Who are they talking to?” Tatum asks, though none of us answer.
“Oh shit,” Sylvie hisses as more puzzling sounds crackle through the mic. “I didn’t know.”
“What the hell made him shatter?” Tessa murmurs.
“Shatter?” I parrot, relieved to hear them both talking, but wondering what’s going on.
“Fuck.” Jax glances at us, somehow understanding what occurred before we ever reach them. “She froze him.”