“O-okay.” She sniffs bravely.
“It’s going to be fine, I promise.” I look around the room, then nod at a chair against the wall. “Let’s prop that against the door to keep them out.” It could buy us a few seconds at least.
But Rose has been gone too long, and I’ve been in here too long to not draw suspicion. The moment I turn toward the chair, the door opens.
It’s Duval, and he’s got a gun in his hand. “Neither of you are going anywhere.”
Fuck. Immediately, I step in front of Rose, spreading my arms to shield her.
“Louis,” she weeps. “Is all this true?” She clings to the back of my dress, and her sniffles are turning into full-fledged sobs.
“Come away from her, Rose,” he says in a low voice.
I tense, because I don’t know what my friend is going to do. We’ve been friends since grade school, but . . . Rose is stupid when it comes to men.
She cringes behind me and bawls a bit louder. “N-no. I thought you loved me.”
His lip curls. He doesn’t even bother to answer, just flicks his gun at me. “Move aside.”
I don’t move. I can call for Rafe, but then what happens to me and Rose? The moment I scream, he’s going to shoot. I can see it on his face. “Let Rose go and I’ll stay with you,” I bargain.
“You’re both too much trouble,” he says, and gestures at me with the gun again. “Step away from each other.”
I watch his gaze go to the lamp. I move closer to it, because if he figures out that the information is missing, things are going to get ugly.
His eyes narrow even as I do. “How did you know?”
“How did I know what?” I bluff.
“Where the information is hidden?” He flicks the safety off. “You have one chance to answer me.”
“I don’t know anything about the information,” I answer honestly. “I’m the only one that could fit in the maid costume.” Staring down the barrel of the gun is making me rather nervous, and Rose keeps cringing behind me and sobbing. It’s distracting the crap out of me. I know she can’t stop, but I also can’t think. “I’m just fucking the guy that sent me in. I don’t want your information. I just want my friend back.”
“Fine. Give me the information right now and I’ll give her to you.” Duval waves the gun at me again. “You can both leave if you hand over the information.”
I pause. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” he echoes. “I’m guessing you stole it from this room.”
Well, he’d have guessed right. I force myself not to look over at the window, to give away where it’s gone. “I . . . don’t have it any longer.”
“That’s what I thought,” Duval says and raises the gun.
Rose screams, stumbling into Duval. It all happens so fast that I don’t feel it at first. It’s just the quiet pffffft of the gun with the silencer, the hiss of air, and then my entire shoulder burns with a flare of pain.
The motherfucker shot me.
I slide to the ground in shock, and Rose sobs even louder.
“Shut the fuck up,” Duval says, pushing her to the ground. “You spoiled my shot.”
“You killed my friend,” Rose weeps over me. At his words, I realize she saved me or he would have shot me in the heart or the head, but she rammed into him and his bullet missed his target. Her hands flick over my hair, my chest, and I realize they’re wet with sticky blood. My blood. Oh shit. My entire shoulder hurts, my chest hurts, and it hurts to breathe.
And . . . I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass out.
Or I’m dying. God, I hope I’m not dying.
My hands go to my shoulder. Everything hurts and I gasp for breath, each lungful sending stabbing pain through me.
“Ava,” Rose cries. In my fading vision, she looks up at Duval and snarls, “You’re a monster. I hate you.”
“And I don’t need you any longer,” he says. “It’s clear we’ve been holding the wrong girl to bargain with.”
And he holds the gun up and shoots her. Right in the head. Rose’s body recoils and then she slumps over me, utterly silent.
And I can’t even scream, because the world has gone black.
CHAPTER THIRTY
RAFAEL
The unmistakable sound of a discharged gun grabs me by the balls and shakes me. I push Bennito aside and race to the patio of the bungalow. The four guards turn to me with raised guns. So much for stealth.
I grab the first one and slit his throat and drive forward, using the guard’s body as a shield. I double tap my Walther PPK into the foreheads of the two others. The fourth ducks and my bullet whizzes over his head.
I push the dead weight of the guard aside and kick the table over and duck behind it. The bullet from the fourth guard strikes the top, and shards of the glass rain down on me.