Page 73 of Merciless Daddy

My nails bit into his skin. His fingers closed around mine only after I had chosen the contact.

“Hold on,” he said.

“I can’t hear him.”

“I know, honey, I’m with you.”

Honey. He called me honey. No time to process it. No time to take it in.

“I can’t—”

“Breathe out.”

I dragged air out of my chest.

“Again.”

I squeezed his hand until the bones should have hurt. He gave no sign of it.

“Longer,” he said. “Good. Again.”

The speaker crackled.

A burst of sound returned. Not speech. An alarm.

Loud. Repeating.

Then Angela’s voice. “I have Tonio’s signal. Audio damaged, telemetry moving.”

“Moving where?” Sal asked.

“Southwest through the house.”

“Toward the loading bay,” I said.

Pietro’s engine roared through the speaker. “I’m at the outer lane. Gate traffic is moving toward the front.”

The fire alarm continued.

“Who pulled it?” I asked.

No answer came.

Later, Tonio told us what happened.

The guard had got one hand around his radio before Tonio drove him into the wall. The earpiece broke when the man’s elbow struck Tonio’s jaw.

They went down together.

The guard was broad and trained. Tonio was broader, better trained, and furious, but he was trying not to kill anyone. That made the fight take longer.

Kiryl stood against the wall for three seconds.

Then my gentle brother took the fire extinguisher from its bracket and swung it into the backs of the guard’s knees.

The man collapsed.

Tonio finished restraining him with a catering tie and a length of electrical cord.