Cole(95)

Then I stopped, my heart pounding.

What had happened?

I looked under the door, and their shoes were gone. I heard the soft tread of footsteps, and I gulped as Dorian’s feet reappeared.

His voice came through right at my level; he must’ve squatted down. “If you don’t come out of there, I am going to kill your friend.”

“Don’t,” I said, still so hoarse. “Please.”

“She’ll stay alive, but only if you come with me.”

I still didn’t know why Dorian was doing this. Who was he, really? I just knew he was a killer. He’d kill Sia. I had no doubt, and I had no options. It was my life for hers. My vision tunneled as panic and icy calm battled within me. I needed a weapon. Looking around, my head felt suddenly heavy, and I couldn’t see anything. God, I needed something—the phone! I yanked out the cord that connected the receiver and the base, and tucked the receiver into my…what the hell was I wearing? I had on a shirt and pajama pants. There were no pockets, nothing. I tucked the receiver into the waistband at the back of my pants and pulled them tight to keep it there. I gripped them in the front, hoping Dorian would think I was just scared. Which I was.

With near hysteria slicing through me, and my legs feeling like lead, I scooted back and unlocked the door.

There he was. He had squatted down, and his eyes were so hard. He smirked, looking like the murderer he was. “Good girl.”





My stomach twisted with disgust.

Dorian clamped a hand on my bad arm and yanked me out of the bathroom. The pain was almost blinding, and I bit back a scream as he said, “We don’t have a lot of time. I don’t know what you did in there, but if a call got through, you might’ve just gotten a whole lot more people dead.”

Sia was on the bed, her eyes closed and her head bleeding.

“What are you talking about?” I rasped. The pain was almost numbing now as he dragged me out of the room.

He paused, glancing down. “I see I didn’t crush your throat enough. You can talk, huh?” His eyes held the same murderous glint as they had when he was interrogating me. “I’ll have to fix that real soon.”

I could see his grip crushing my hand, but I didn’t feel it. Sia had said two men, but as Dorian pulled me all the way from Cole’s bedroom down to the kitchen, I saw no one. They were gone.

“Ah. You’re looking for help, huh?” He tsked me. “You’re going to be a pain in my ass, aren’t you? No one’s here, Addison. They’re gone, and you want to know why? Because I’m the building manager. I’ve been with Cole since the beginning, even before he came back. I was one of the first he put in place, so that means they trust me. They all trust me.”

We moved through the kitchen to the elevator. Then he let me go. My hip hit the floor with a thump—a fresh burst of agony. Layers of pain on top of more pain. It was all starting to blend.

Dorian put the code in, calling the elevator, and as we waited, he glanced down at me.

He was smiling.

The asshole was smiling.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” he said, shaking his head. “You have no idea what I’ve been through or what I’ve had to do. Do you know what it’s like? I’ve been loyal to the Bertal family for years, and when they said they needed a rat in the Mauricio family, I volunteered. They told me I was going in deep, and they weren’t kidding.”

He squatted, looking at me with narrowed eyes. “I buddied up to Cole when he was in hiding. I waited six weeks, and then I made the call. I knew what party he was going to, what car he was riding in. I gave them directions. They were supposed to kill him, and my job was supposed to be done. But it didn’t happen that way. The fucker killed them instead. Some of those guys were good guys. They were my friends, Addison.”

The elevator arrived. When the doors opened, his hand clamped around my ankle, and he threw me inside. I hit the back wall and crumpled to the floor as he stepped in with me, whistling. He hit the override, and then the button for the basement.

He leaned back, folding his arms, and winked. “We can’t have any surprises. Cole and his men are gone. I gave them the location of one of the Bertal warehouses. Told ’em it was another tip. The drive out there is a good four hours each way. The guards left behind are circling the running track. There was a breach by one of the exit doors there, and apparently I saw someone slip out. They’ll be searching for a good hour.” He grinned, so smug. “All the cameras are down, and the only one who could do anything to stop me is Ken. Too bad someone knocked him out. Oops.”

Fucker. “Why? Why are you doing this?”