“We can’t run all day,” I whisper to his back. “At some point, we’re going to have to stop, regather.”
And save Peter and Josie, too.
I haven’t forgotten Saxon’s promise that he’ll send Guy for them. And while Saxon’s older brother isn’t exactly on my list of chums that I’d love to grab a pint with, I know that he cares deeply for his family. If he’s sent for my siblings, they’ll be in good hands. Safe hands.
I hope.
Distracting myself from thoughts that may send me into a downward spiral, I press my back into the building that lines the snicket. My teeth chatter from the chill that’s swept over my body. The longer we move, the colder I become. The adrenaline ditched me somewhere near the Stepney Tube station, leaving nothing behind but festering fear and mounting dread.
What have I done?
“Saxon.” When he doesn’t answer, I reach for his back, laying a hand on his spine to snag his attention. The contact to my throbbing palm has me hissing out a short, uneven breath. “Saxon, please. Where are we going?”
With his hair plastered to his temple, and his skin pebbled with pearls of rain, Saxon looks like an ancient warlord reincarnated. Broad shoulders, hard chest, thick thighs. The scarred mouth and intense stare that he levels on me only fuels the feeling that he could save me, or break me, if he so chose.
He indicates the opposite side of the street with a tilt of his chin. “There.”
Slack-jawed, I stare at the appointed brick building.
It’s not unlike the tens of others we’ve passed in the last half hour. A phone shop on the ground floor—two stories above it. Narrow, single-paned windows meshed with a decided lack of character or charm. From our vantage point, it’s hard not to miss the crumbling brick façade and the string of rubbish strewn along the pavement. The store’s windows are completely boarded up.
My own flat isn’t exactly posh, but this . . . “It’s a hellhole.”
Saxon leverages a hand over his pistol, re-holstering it in one smooth move. “Tonight, it’s our hellhole.”
“You’re taking the piss, aren’t you.”
“Not even a little.”
“The ceiling looks like it might cave in at any second!”
“Only imagine the opportunities if it did,” Saxon murmurs, slicking a wet hand over my shoulder and giving me a nudge forward. “Chances to fake your own death don’t come around every day.”
I take it back. All of it.
Saxon Priest isn’t a coldhearted bastard—he’s certifiably mad.
Tempted as I am to dig my heels in and demand that he bring me home, I trail him across the busy street. Home is dangerous . . . or it soon will be. Realistically, it’s only a matter of time before the survivor from The Octagon gives the police our identities. And while the Priest brothers seem to have experience with successfully erasing themselves from the public eye—or, at least, the internet—the same can’t be said for me. Even after killing the king, I carried on with my routine, hoping that acting normal would translate to normal all around.
Simply put, I’m fucked.
Throwing a hasty glance to the right for oncoming traffic, I spot The Shard’s hazy silhouette on the horizon. It stretches toward the sky like a beacon—of what, I have no idea. Stability, perhaps. Normalcy. Not that any part of this day has been remotely normal.
“You do have a key, don’t you?” I ask.
He approaches the run-down phone shop with quick, measured strides.
“Saxon?” I scurry behind him, picking up the pace. “Saxon, breaking and entering is not going to be what turns this day around for the better. Do you know the owner? Are they on our side? Because I’m telling you right now, I hope you trust them with everything that you are, or we are so fu—”
I grind to a halt when he stops before the shop’s front door, swipes his dark hair back from his face, and waits.
I almost miss it. No, I would have missed it, had I blinked a second earlier. The door—the glass door—reflects Saxon’s grim expression before turning a shade of red along the perimeter of his body. An outline of glowing neon that dims a moment later.
What the hell?
Slowly, the door cracks open as though invisible hands have tugged on the handle from the inside. Saxon pushes it wide. “Go in.”
Déjà vu.
Not for the crazy, high-tech door or this wild, insane day, but for him.
The car, the confessional, this boarded-up phone shop. Each time he’s told me some variation of “get in,” I’ve found myself more deeply embroiled in this world of chaos. This time, unlike the others, however, I don’t have the luxury of turning him down—not that I’ve done so, yet.
Within hours, I’ll be a wanted woman. A criminal. Just as I feared after murdering King John.
I slip past Saxon, my fingertips accidentally grazing his hip as I knot the fabric of my shirt to squeeze out the excess rainwater. “Well, are you going to explain how all that worked?”
He closes the door behind us, flipping the deadbolt. “Security system.”
It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. “Yes, Saxon, a security system. One that’s state of the art, nothing like I’ve ever seen before, and programmed to analyze a person’s identity simply by stepping in front of it.”
Not to mention that this fancy-schmancy tech security system is being used at a dead-beat phone shop in Stepney, of all places. Which means that this building is either not at all what it seems, or the Priest brothers were in need of a testing zone for another locale and figured this one would do.
Either way, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
How can they afford technology like that? Surely, The Bell & Hand does well—but this well? And why in the world do they own an abandoned building in the East End, in the first place? One glance around the space proves that the ramshackle exterior suitably matches the inside. An old register sits along a far wall and aisles take up the majority of the space to my left. Dust and debris crunch beneath my boots as I turn in a small circle.
Hellhole is a grave understatement.
Saxon brushes past me. “Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?”
“Yes, actually.” I stare at him, deadpan. “My old employer at the network right before he sacked me for insubordination.”
“Seems like he had the right of it.”
Deep breath. Take it in; let it out. Do not kill someone else today.
Fingers tingling at the memory of what I’d done, just hours ago, I slam the door on those debilitating thoughts before they cripple my wits. “Who owns this building? Just you? You and your brothers?”
He guns me with a quick stare. “Sometimes, the less you know the better.”
“You know what I think?”
“Something tells me that you’ll say what’s on your mind, no matter how I answer.”
Disgruntled, I plant my good hand on my hip. “It was a rhetorical question.”
“Rhetorical questions are for the weak-minded.” I drag in a sharp, affronted breath, just before he adds, “Say what you want or don’t say it at all.”
“Fine. All right. Then I don’t agree with you—knowing less makes you a sitting duck.” Restlessly, I dig my fingers into my hip. “Yesterday, you essentially told me that the information I had didn’t interest you.”