Chapter 211
Because I killed it, she had screamed at him. You and your whore!
She had believed he was dangerous. She had believed he would destroy them.
And looking around this room — destroyed first by his own rage, then by what he could only assume were English’s men — he couldn’t blame her.
“Mr. Holloway?”
Hilliard turned. Pierre, the manager, stood in the doorway looking pale and frightened. Behind him, two maids peered in with wide eyes.
“The police are downstairs,” Pierre said. “They’ve gone now, but they received a report of a break-in.”
“The men who were here,” Hilliard said, his voice hard. “They had a warrant?”
Pierre wrung his hands. “It looked official, sir. But they were very aggressive. Not like regular police. Our security tried to intervene, and they were overpowered.”
“There were no other men,” Hilliard said, walking toward him. His eyes were cold steel. “Do you understand? I lost my temper. I’ll pay for the damages.”
Pierre swallowed. “Yes, sir. You lost your temper.”
Hilliard walked past him to the elevator. He needed to think. He needed to find her.
If she had children, she needed supplies. She needed a safe house.
He thought of the network anomaly his phone had flagged earlier. The military-grade encryption. He thought of the van that had pulled up in the alley outside the ER.
Kegan.
Charla had mentioned The Vault. Kegan ran The Vault.
If Kegan had them…
Hilliard’s blood went cold. Kegan was dangerous. But Kegan was also — protective.
Kegan had called her.
Hilliard drove his fist into the elevator wall. The metal dented with a hollow boom.
In the trunk of a sedan speeding toward the docks, Charla English screamed against the duct tape sealing her mouth.
She kicked at the lid. Thump. Thump.
No one heard her.
The car hit a hard bump and she groaned, the pain from her broken leg blazing white through her whole body.
She thought of Hilliard. He had hung up on her. He thought she was lying.
For the first time in her life, Charla English was telling the truth — and it was going to get her killed.
The car slowed. She heard seagulls. She smelled salt water.
The trunk popped open.
A man in a ski mask looked down at her. Behind him, the dark water of the harbor churned in the night.
“End of the line, princess,” the man said.
Charla’s eyes went wide with terror.
Hilliard sat in his car on a cliff overlooking the city, the engine off, the world quiet around him. He held the Lego ninja up to the moonlight, turning it slowly between his fingers.
“I know you’re out there,” he whispered. “And I’m coming for you.”
“The hunt has just begun.”
Hilliard sat on the edge of the ruined sofa in the penthouse suite, elbows on his knees, the room around him in shambles. The silence was broken only by the rhythmic drum of rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows.
In his hand, he held the red Lego ninja.