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I don’t even need to think about it. His love for me, his belief in protecting our children, which is a resounding “yes.” He’d do just about anything, putting himself in the line of fire to ensure me and the babies are safe. “Fuck!” I roar into the phone.
“Jack!” I scream down the hall. He stops whatever he’s doing and literally runs to me. If you’ve never seen a giant, NFL-sized man run in a suit, you’re missing out. It’s extreme, it’s lethal, and something I’ll remember for the rest of my days. “Gotta go, Dana.”
“Mrs. Davis,” Jack clasps my shoulders his dark eyes piercing mine.
“Chase is going after Danny alone. Probably working with Tommy and that Agent. He’s at Coit Tower now. He’s going to do something stupid.”
“Let’s go,” his voice comes out in a deep bark.
Jack and I race to the parking garage and to the car. Jack’s flying out into traffic within minutes of giving him the run down. It takes twenty of the most intense moments of my life waiting to get to the tower only to have Jack stop at the front entrance loading zone like he was in a bad cop, chase movie. Just when I grab the handle to get out, he locks the doors. “Stay in the car,” he growls.
“But…” I try.
“Stay in the fucking car!” He’s taken a tone with me that he never has before. It’s scary, it’s bad ass, and actually frightens me a little. “This guy is afteryou. You go in there, he has you. I’ll bring Chase out. Got me?”
Looking into the fierce eyes of one Jack Porter, I whisper, “I got you.”
Then he’s gone. Up the stairs and out of view. For five nail-biting minutes I wait. Then I wait two more. Nothing. I can’t handle it. The prickles are firing all up and down my scalp, the hair of my arms, and down my spine. Fear replaces the prickles. Not fear for me. Not for our unborn babies. Fear for Chase. The love of my life. The man that this life isn’t worth living if I don’t have him to share it with.
I hit the unlock button and am running up the steps to the Tower in seconds. Once I get to the top, I can’t see anyone through the glass doors but am supremely thankful to find them still unlocked.
Thinking that if I was Chase, or Daniel, or even Jack for that matter I’d sneak up the stairs, find every dark corner possible and hide in it. Only I’m not them, I’m me. So I’m going to take the path more often traveled. And if I know my husband, and I’m pretty sure I do, if he was going to make a romantic gesture, even a fake one to ferret out Daniel, he’d go big. So the top of the tower it is. I hit the button for the elevator and it opens with a ding. The double, blue doors shut and then I see a set of metal gate-like doors. I push those closed hoping I’m doing the right thing and lock that into place. Now that I’m inside I look around for a panel of buttons to get to the top and find there isn’t one. However, on the back wall there is an old-fashioned lever with a ball at the end of it. Making a guess, I shift the lever from the left side to the right. Instantly the car starts to go up. I’m assuming it’s going to take me to the Tower level.
The elevator creaks and rumbles as it goes up the twenty-one floors. Eventually it stops, and it’s so loud I’m afraid the entire building heard my arrival. Either way, I know my man is up here sacrificing himself for me, and I’m not letting him put himself into the frying pan alone. The blue doors open. After struggling with the metal door, I finally get them to unlock and open into place so I can walk through. A sign across the wall says “Top of Tower Use Stairs.”
Now I’m scared. The hallway is dark, barely lit by a speck of light lining the floor every few feet. Fire lights probably. I reach the stairs and slowly make my way up. I hear the sound of wind screaming through an open space and brace myself for the chill.
I do not expect what I see when I arrive at the top stair. Chase, my husband, kissing another woman.
On instinct I yell, “Chase!” the words come out of my mouth like a banshee wail complete with the heartache it brings. He pulls back form the red-head who looks frighteningly like me. His head flips around behind him and then I’ve got his eyes. Sadness, fear, love hit me like a wall of fiery heat as our gazes lock.
“No!” He yells his face becoming hard. And that’s when I see a dark figure behind Ms. Redhead. One holding up a gun. Aiming at Chase’s back.
I scream, but it’s not enough. The man fires twice. Chase’s body jerks mid-air, his body flying up, back arching as a roar leaves his lips before he falls into a heap on the floor. Oh my God! My feet move and I run into the fray, not caring that someone has a gun.
It’s as if everything happens in slow motion, the red-headed woman rifles under her skirt, pulls out a gun and aims it across the way and fires. The shooter comes into the light of the moon, and I see Daniel, his blond hair now dark, his face covered in hair fires back two shots pinning the woman right in the chest. “No!” I scream useless as she falls to the floor like a domino.
I almost make it to Chase when Danny grasps me around the waist, my feet go flying into the air as I struggle to get to my man. “Leave him,” Daniel growls, his voice filled with hatred.
“Danny, I need to get him help,” I cry kicking, my eyes focused on the lifeless bodies in front of me.
“Where they’re going, they don’t need help,” his voice is a knife shredding my heart.
Danny moves us close enough to them that I can see Chase isn’t moving. His face is looking away from me. The redhead’s to so I can’t figure out who she is. But she had gun, so I’m guessing she’s an undercover cop. Daniel stops all movement when he gets me into a position where his grip is around my chest and the steely cold of his metal gun is pressing into my temple. He pushes me away from their bodies, right against the flat wall of the tower, next to a window. Out of nowhere, I see a single red dot glance off the wall next to my head. Danny sees it, too, and reacts lightning fast, swooping me into a more hidden location behind a pillar.
The wind is blowing viscously from the open spaces. He brings the gun up to my face and presses it under my chin. “Fucking snipers,” he looks around and makes sure, that from where we’re standing, he’s not vulnerable. One side of the tower faces the Bay, which means the snipers must be on the other side. This doesn’t seem to faze him at all because when I look into his eyes they are solid black, colder than I’ve ever seen before.
“Danny,” I whisper, trying to appeal to the side I spent months with. The side I was extremely fond of for almost a year.
“How dare you let him marry you? Fuck you. Stick his bastard child inside you!” He presses the muzzle of the gun deep into my chin. I whimper not knowing what to do or say that will help, and right now all I can think about is Chase lying unmoving, ten feet away and I can’t get to him.
“Daniel, I know you don’t want to kill these people. Please, call for help. I’ll go anywhere you want. Do whatever. Just don’t let them die.” The tears fall in a river down my cheeks.
He shakes his head. His light eyes are giant and black as night. “No fucking way. They can die right here, and you can watch. Maybe I’ll turn you around, get you on your knees and fuck you like the whore you are, the way you wanted me to fuck you when things went to shit. You know,” he grips me painfully by the hair pulling at the roots. I look everywhere, wondering wear Jack is, why he hasn’t intervened and then worrying that maybe Daniel already got the lock on Jack.
“You looking for the fucking bodyguard?”
My eyes fly to his once more. “Yeah, I knocked that fucker out nice and quiet as to not interrupt the festivities. He took a tumble down a flight of stairs. Now that I know all this was a setup, all the better. I’ll go back and shoot him in the face, and you and I will be off the grid. Of course, after I take you home so I can rid your body of the vile parasite.”
