Rolo shoves me toward the door with an exit sign glowing red above it, and waves at it with the gun. “Open the door, rich bitch, or I will shoot you in the fucking head. You hear me?”
My hand trembles as I reach for the door, my self-defense skills no longer appearing as useful as I once hoped they’d be.
What do I do? Leave the club and go with him? Or stand my ground and die fighting?
Gabriel, what do I do?
Fifty-Four
Legend
“Where the fuck is she?” I shout at Hal, who’s near the cage but still out in the crowd, while the announcer comes out to declare me the winner of the fight by knockout.
“I don’t know. She was coming up there. I can’t find her in all these people!” he shouts from just feet outside the cage.
The ref grabs my hand and raises it in the air, but I don’t give a shit about anything right now, including winning. Only one thing matters, and that’s Scarlett.
As soon as they announce me as the winner, Jeb comes over. “Let’s get a picture—”
“My woman’s missing. Gotta go.”
His expression morphs into one of seriousness. “What? How?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
I run for the cage door, pushing through the crowd at the stairs, and catch sight of Monroe and Harlow. “Where is she?”
Harlow shakes her head. “I don’t know! She ran up there to get to you. She’s gone.”
“Fuck!” I roar the word and plow through the crowd, ignoring everyone who is trying to congratulate me. Clap me on the back. Tell me job well done.
None of it matters. If Moses has Scarlett, my world is gone. No one knows the hell I’m living right now. Not a single person in this place.
Someone tugs my arm, and I’m tempted to throw an elbow until I see his face. Q.
“What’s wrong?”
“Scarlett’s gone. I don’t know where she went right after the knockout. No one does.”
His face pales. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He reaches for a com controller I didn’t notice earlier, attached to his suit. “Scarlett is missing. Lock the place down. No one goes in or out. Find her. Keep her fucking safe.”
Security. He’s talking to security. The extra security we have on duty to prevent this from happening to begin with.
“They have to find her,” I tell him, charging toward the back of the club, not sure where the hell I’m going, but I know she isn’t here.
Q follows me, and when we hit a pocket of empty space near the bar, he slaps a hand over my shoulder. “Someone thought they saw Rolo right before the fight. I didn’t want to take a chance of telling you and fucking with your head. No one’s seen him again. I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t think he’d try to come. I didn’t think he’d go after her either.”
“Fuck!” I roar, and adrenaline dumps into my system. “Find her! Now!”
People in the crowd are staring, but I don’t give a fuck. Nothing matters but Scarlett.
Not this club.
Not this fight.
Not the money.
Nothing.
I can’t lose her.
Fifty-Five
Scarlett
The door I’m standing in front of opens without me turning the handle, but Rolo doesn’t realize that. He shoves me through the opening . . . straight into the arms of the very last man on this earth I want to see right now. The man who I last saw with a gun to Bump’s head.
Moses.
“Whoa, darlin’. Damn, sometimes life just works out perfectly, doesn’t it?” His accented words cut through the static in my head.
“Who the fuck are you? Let her go!” Rolo barks as Moses shoves me behind him.
My knees give out as I stumble and land on my ass.
“No problem, man,” Moses says easily, like Rolo isn’t training his weapon on him. “I let her go. What the fuck you gonna do now?”
“Shoot you in the fuckin’—”
But Rolo doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Moses’s hand moves faster than Rolo’s mouth. This time I cover my ears and turn away as Moses pulls the trigger. There’s a deafening gunshot, followed by a thud.
Jesus Christ. No. No. No.
“I don’t think so, motherfucker,” Moses says to Rolo’s body as my ears ring.
Desperate to get away from him, I scramble, crawling toward another damn door, the one I’m praying leads outside of this rabbit warren of hallways.
Gabriel. I need Gabriel. I have to warn him.
Footsteps slap on the concrete behind me.
“You’re gonna ruin your dress like that, princess,” Moses says over the gurgling sound coming from behind us. “Why don’t you get on up now. You’re too pretty to be shaking on your knees.”
He says it so melodically. His deep timbre would almost be soothing, but he has a gun and he’s threatened to kill me before.
But he’s right. I’m not going to die on my knees. I turn my head toward him, tamping down the bone-deep fear coursing through my body.
“How? How did you get in here? Everyone is looking for you. Everyone.”
Moses’s smirk lights up those eerie eyes of his. The light greenish-gold color belongs to a predator. His gun hangs by his side in a loose grip, pointed at the floor as I press my palms against the concrete.
“I’d venture to guess everyone’s looking for you too by now, Ms. Priest. I did not expect that bitch to grab you. She threw off all my plans, and then Rolo offing her . . .” He shakes his head like he’s annoyed. “Now shit’s gonna get complicated.”
“What . . . what do you want?”
“First, for you to get up. I don’t like seeing women on the ground. Bothers me.”
It bothers him to see women on the ground? I blink twice as I process what he said, but I make no move to stand.
He releases a sigh and shakes his head. “Lord, save me from women who don’t know how to do what they’re told. Get up, girl. I’m losing my patience.”
I don’t do it for him. I do it for myself and my self-respect.
“If you’re going to kill me, why does it matter if I’m standing?” I ask as I regain my balance on my heels and straighten my shoulders.
One of his eyebrows goes up. “You think you know how this is gonna go? Because I suspect you don’t.”
Fifty-Six
Legend
“Gunshot in the back hallway,” Q says to me, and we both change directions and run.
I dodge people, shoving them out of the way. Men in black suits move through the crowd, heading in the same direction.
Q goes for his keys, but I yank the handle of the service door, and it flies open.
Fuck. So much for security having shit locked down.
We both bolt down the hallway, and then slide to a halt when we see a body on the floor. Black hair.
Not Scarlett. Thank fuck.
“Who is that?” one of the security guys asks as I step toward her.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Lucy Byers. Some bitch who was hassling Scarlett.”