Chapter 6 - The Ex
The intercom clicked off, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in the panic room.
I looked at Jared in sheer terror.
"He will actually do it," I whispered, my voice shaking. "Brendan doesn't care how many innocent people die."
Jared's jaw locked in a rigid, furious line.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked to a hidden weapons cabinet.
"He won't detonate anything," Jared stated calmly, loading extra magazines into his tactical vest.
"He needs you alive to control the veterinary supply lines he's been using to smuggle narcotics."
I felt completely sick to my stomach, realizing my clinic had been used as a mafia front.
Jared pressed a button on the wall, revealing a dark, narrow ventilation shaft.
"This leads to the maintenance tunnels behind the elevator shafts," he explained.
He helped me climb into the tight space, and Titan bravely followed us in the dark.
We crawled in total silence for ten agonizing minutes, dust burning my lungs.
Jared kicked out a metal grate, and we dropped into a dimly lit concrete corridor on the fiftieth floor.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, the blinding beam of a flashlight hit my face.
"I knew you'd use the escape hatch," Brendan said with a wicked laugh.
He stood twenty feet away, surrounded by six heavily armed Romanov thugs.
Brendan looked exactly the same as I remembered, wearing a leather jacket and a cruel smirk.
"Come here, Willa," Brendan ordered, holding out his hand like I was a disobedient dog.
"Don't take another step," Jared warned, stepping in front of me with his weapon raised.
Brendan laughed and raised a detonator in his left hand.
"Drop the gun, Kensington, or I blow this entire floor to ash."
Jared hesitated for a fraction of a second, weighing the lives of everyone in the building.
He slowly lowered his rifle to the concrete floor.
Brendan smiled triumphantly and raised his own pistol, aiming it directly at my chest.
"If I can't have you, nobody can," Brendan snarled, pulling the trigger.
Jared lunged violently, throwing his massive body directly in front of the bullet.
The gunshot echoed deafeningly in the narrow tunnel as Jared collapsed onto the concrete, clutching his stomach.
"Attack!" I screamed the command I had taught Titan earlier.
The Mastiff roared and launched his hundred-and-fifty-pound body through the air, sinking his teeth into Brendan's arm.
May you like
Brendan screamed in agony, accidentally dropping the explosive detonator.
But as Titan dragged Brendan to the ground, one of the thugs picked up the detonator and pressed the button.
