Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49989 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
One looked at Boss.
The other looked directly at her.
Silence fell in the room, and Cleo couldn’t look away from the man staring at her. Was that Target? Her father? Did he even look like her? Why was she humoring him when she swore up and down she never wanted to meet the people who’d thrown her away as a baby? A lot of brokenness she’d buried came rushing to the surface being in the same room as her blood relative.
Her hand tightened in Priest’s.
Did he know which one was her father?
Boss stepped forward, as did the other man.
“Boss,” he said.
“Viko.”
That meant the man looking directly at her had to be her father. After so many years of imagining this moment, of building up a twisted fairy tale, this was not one of those she had ever thought of. He was a killer.
She stared into his eyes that were cold and dead.
“Target, are you not going to greet your daughter? A lot of effort has been made for you two to get this special moment,” Viko said.
Cleo looked at him and tilted her head to the side. This man was her father. She couldn’t stop thinking of the word, dad. Dad. Father. This was her … parent. The words felt foreign. This was no Hallmark moment.
Target glanced down at her chest, and then she heard the bellow.
“Get down!”
Glass shattered, and she saw Target charge toward her. In the next second, she was on her back as more glass started to break. The sounds were deafening, and she struggled to breathe, all the air forced from her lungs.
They were under attack.
Chapter Eleven
Priest noticed the red dot zigzagging on Cleo’s shirt only a moment before Target barreled forward, taking her to the ground. The windows began to shatter, glass shrapnel raining down on them.
“Take the stairs!” Boss shouted. He was on his back, firing between his legs.
Priest grabbed Cleo’s arm, pulling her to her feet as she struggled to breathe. He made eye contact with Target for seconds, but it felt like the entire world stopped for those brief moments. That asshole had stolen his revenge, made decades of planning, searching, and fantasizing all come crashing down around him. Priest deserved his vengeance, and now he’d never get it. Target also fucked over Cleo and now wanted a golden ticket back into her life. Fuck him.
He bent over as he ran, sheltering Cleo under his arm as he rushed to the door at the far end of the room. Every man was firing, and they had no eyes on the original shooter. Even Boss hadn’t anticipated this, so the situation wasn’t good. Priest had no clue how long they’d been tailed or how intricate the planning of this attack was.
Viper, Bain, and Gabriel stepped out of the elevator, their guns at the ready. They rushed into the melee just as he opened the emergency door into the stairwell. The power was killed as the door closed behind them, the generator-powered lights giving the stairwell an eerie blue glow. The building alarm sounded, and no party wanted the cops involved.
“Are we going to die?” she asked.
“Take my hand.”
They traversed the stairs, staying close to the walls. He trained his gun ahead of him, taking caution around every turn, occasionally aiming up to where they’d come from. The meeting place was only on the sixth floor, so there wasn’t too far until they hit the ground level.
“I’m scared,” Cleo said, holding his hand in a firm grip.
“Don’t think about it. Just another walk in the park,” he said.
She struggled to keep up. “Was my father trying to kill me?”
“He was trying to save you.” Priest didn’t want to give any credit to that man, but Cleo was probably alive because of his actions. He wouldn’t lie to her about that.
The subtle creak of door hinges brought Priest to a complete stop. He put his finger to his lips to keep Cleo quiet. Several sets of boots were coming up the stairs.
“Sit here.” He pointed to the stair near the wall. “Don’t move no matter what you hear.” Priest couldn’t send her back upstairs to that clusterfuck, and he didn’t want her getting shot in the stairwell once things went hot. He’d have to deal with things his way.
He moved down to the next level to put some distance between him and Cleo. He wouldn’t risk a stray bullet hitting her. As soon as the first man partially rounded the corner, he fired. The sound echoed in the confined space. Cleo squealed above. The men began shouting to each other now that they knew he was there, rushing up the stairs.
Priest focused his energy on the task, blocking out the alarm and everything else around him. Once he was in the killing zone, he was more machine than man. He fired at the next men before they could pull their triggers, hitting one in the forehead, the other in the heart, their dead bodies falling backward down the stairs. When one managed to get through, Priest holstered his gun and pulled a blade from his boot, flicking it forward. It struck the guy in the neck, and he clutched his throat as he joined his friends in the heap below. He waited for more, itching for some hand-to-hand, but all was quiet besides the alarm and the echoes of gunfire.