My stomach dropped.
Ronan’s jaw ticked. “Last chance.”
Kyle was right. If Ronan had found the bomb and disabled it in the minutes he was gone, then he would’ve shot Kyle already. Kyle didn’t have a gun. He only had the detonation device in his hand.
“Go ahead,” Kyle taunted. “Shoot.”
“Ronan, don’t.” I didn’t think for one second that Kyle was bluffing about another bomb. “He’ll blow us all up.”
“Walk toward me, Sanaa,” Ronan ordered without taking his eyes off Kyle.
“Yes, by all means, Sanaa, do that.” Kyle’s hold on my neck loosened. “Walk toward lover boy and let’s see what happens.”
“He said he has another bomb planted.” I silently pleaded for Ronan to give me a sign that he’d found the bomb.
“Last chance,” Ronan warned, still not looking at me.
Kyle smirked, and his grip on me tightened again. “Sure.” He started to move right toward Ronan, forcing me to walk with him. “Keep up the bluff, lover boy. But for the record, it sucks compared to your right hook.”
Gun aimed, stance wide, Ronan didn’t budge. “You know what the fundamental problem with C4 and a single detonation device is, Abernathy?”
Kyle paused, but he didn’t say anything.
“Do I have your attention now? Should I continue?” Ronan asked in the same lethally calm tone.
“Sure, keep bluffing.” Kyle laughed, but this time it was strained.
“Anyone can disarm it.” With the briefest of glances, Ronan’s eyes met mine and he gave me a single command. “Knees.”
I dropped my weight.
Without a single second of hesitation, Ronan pulled the trigger.
Harm had said he needed ninety seconds.
It’d been double that.
Praying like fuck he’d reached the device like he’d said he could, I glanced at my Songbird and issued a single command. “Knees.”
Submissive and beautiful, she didn’t even blink. She dropped to her knees, and I pulled the trigger.
Abernathy’s head snapped back with the force of the close range shot and his head fucking exploded a fraction of a second before a detonation boomed through the suite and shook the floor.
“Ronan!” Sanaa screamed, her hands going to her ears as she cowered on the floor.
Grabbing her by the front of the sweater, I yanked her to me and holstered my weapon before putting my arms over her head. “Easy, easy. Stay with me.” Glancing up, I pulled us under the doorframe. Then I scanned the bedroom and the suite. “Give it a second to settle.” More debris fell, the floor shifted, but the explosion wasn’t as loud as the previous ones, and it didn’t shake the building as violently.
Her arms wrapped around me. “You said you disabled it,” she accused. “You said it anyone could do it.”
“Anyone could.” If they could’ve reached it, which Harm apparently hadn’t, but he’d seen it before the first explosions had gone off, and that was the only reason we were still standing here. That, and Abernathy had stupidly not hidden the third bomb when he set it just under the landing of the stairwell on this floor.
“Come on, you’re going under the mattress one more time. I need to go check on Harm.” With an urgency I hoped she didn’t pick up on, and with my hand keeping her head to my chest so she didn’t look at the body, I moved her back to the bed and got her under the mattress. Squatting so she could see my eyes, I made her a promise. “I’m not going to let anything else happen to you. Give me a few minutes to check on Harm, and I’ll be back. If I’m not back in a few minutes, give me a few more. It only means Harm needs my help. You’re safe here for now.” I pulled the fabric back up over her nose and mouth. “Leave this in place until we get out of here.”
Her small fingers wrapped around my wrist. “Okay, but make it less than a few minutes.”
A ghost of a smile hit the side of my mouth. “I’ll do my best.”
“Wait. What was that?” She touched my lips with a shaking hand and then the girl I’d met all those years ago, the one who always tried to make light of heavy situations, she came out. “Can it be? The serious Ronan Conlon is giving me a smile with a dead body lying next to us after three bombs went off?”
Taking her hand, I kissed her palm. “Ten minutes. Max.”
“If you leave me under here for ten more minutes, I’m coming to look for you,” she warned.
I didn’t doubt it for one second. “Copy that.” I squeezed her hand and stood to leave.
“Be careful,” she called.
I glanced over my shoulder. “I’m always careful.”
“Except when you pull the trigger while a suicidal bomber is holding a detonation device.”
“No,” I agreed. “Then I’m calculating and precise.”
Leaving the body for later, I strode back through the second suite and rushed down the corridor to the stairwell.
No more visible damage than before, I called out before I could see around the corner. “Harm!” Holding the doorframe, watching my step, I looked into the stairwell.
Grasping a section of broken-off railing, standing on a now even smaller section of landing, Harm looked up at me. “I couldn’t reach it.”
I glanced down at the now gaping hole that was stairwell. Jesus Christ. “What the hell did you do?”
“I can’t hear you,” he said louder than he needed to. “I need to see your lips.”
I looked back at him. “I said, what the hell did you do?”
“I couldn’t reach it,” he repeated. “So I hit it with this.” He held the broken-off piece of railing in his hand up higher. “Knocked it down.” He glanced toward the now twenty-story hole where the stairwell had been. “It exploded somewhere down there.” He looked back up at me and shrugged. “Maybe halfway? Not sure. Is he dead?”
“Yeah, he’s dead.” I could’ve taken Abernathy down without killing him, restrained him until we got out of here, but I didn’t, and I had no regrets about it. “Don’t move. I’m going to get something to get you out of there.”
“What?”
“Don’t move,” I uselessly yelled.
“Copy.” He leaned back against the wall, but he favored his bloodied leg.
“Hey!”
He looked up.
I nodded at his leg. “Does that need pressure on it to stop the bleeding?” The last thing I wanted was for him to pass out from blood loss, then drop twenty stories.
He shook his head and winced. “I’m good, as long as I don’t shake my head.”
I took him at his word, but he looked like hell. “Be right back.”
Giving me a thumbs-up instead of a nod, he leaned against the wall again.
Rushing back into the first suite, I ripped the curtains down and used my knife to cut the pull cords. It wasn’t ideal, but I could fashion something that would hopefully be strong enough to get Harm up fifteen feet and to safety. Taking the material and the cord, I started to walk back out of the suite when I glanced at a bag I hadn’t seen before on the floor by the kitchenette.