ZANE

 

I hear the steel plate moving, and when I glance down there is a tall man climbing up onto the top of the elevator roof. I don't recognize his face, although I most likely wouldn't anyways, seeing as how there seems to be an endless supply of these goons.

If there's one thing I know for certain, it's that the Grimm family has endless resources and endless men who have pledged their complete and total allegiance to the cause. I look up at Anna real quick and then back down. The man standing on top of the elevator roof raises his gun so that it's aimed squarely at me and Anna.

I think quickly.

I spread my hands out to grip the sides of the ladder and then slide down the long links that we have already climbed until my feet slam against the steel elevator roof. I'm face to face with the man now. He seems to be taken aback, almost like he's frozen in place. I take advantage of that fact and move quickly to disarm him by throwing one arm underneath his arm and then twisting it back; I then throw his ass down against the ground. I twist back on my feet and see another pair of hands grabbing onto the top of the roof.

I stomp on the hand as hard as I can. And bones crack beneath my boots followed by a painful groan. I hear the man's body tumble against the elevator floor. Swiftly, I drop to my knees and push the steel plate back over the opening. I look back to see the man rising to his feet, and jump to my own feet to meet him at his own level. I throw a punch that connects with his cheek.

Crack!

I twist my arm around the front of his throat and hold him just underneath my armpits. I tighten my grip and his fingers dig into the flesh of my arm, trying desperately to escape my grip before it's lights out.

It doesn't take long before he stops fighting; out of energy and out of air, he drops to the floor, landing with a thud against the metal roof.

Before anyone else can try to ascend through the top of the elevator shaft, I look up to see that she's looking down at me. I offer her a quick nod and she slides down the ladder in the same manner I had just done prior. She lands against the elevator roof, her shoes pounding against the metal.

"We don't have a lot of time, so this is what I need you to do," I say to her, grabbing her hand. “I’m going to drop the man back into the elevator shaft. Hopefully it will distract whoever is down there long enough so that we can get the upper hand and fight our way out of this building."

"I trust you." She nods gently and drops to her knees to take action. She rolls the unconscious man off of the metal plate.

I push the steel plate out of the way with my boots. And then I assist Anna in pushing the man's knocked-out body back into the elevator. It lands, crashing against the hard floor, and is followed by the sound of a man yelling from inside the elevator. I pass Anna one last look, knowing that this could go wrong and knowing I may never see her again.

My boots land against the floor of the elevator and I twist into gear. The two doors are being held open by a man standing in-between them. I lunge forward, delivering a strong blow to his chest. He flinches backwards but manages to straighten himself out and ready his fists.

"We can do this the easy way," I say. "Or we can do it the hard way. It's your choice.”

He chuckles under his breath, because he obviously doesn't know who the hell I am. Which I suppose is fitting since I don't know him either. With the exception of Mitch, all of these men are nothing more than faceless rogue enemies. In my head, they're not even human because they have no discernible personality, and quite frankly they all look like they could be related, like some sort of incestuous cult.

The man before me cocks his head both ways, each time cracking the bones in his neck. "I'm supposed to take you and her alive." He reaches to grab his gun from his hip holster.

I lunge myself forward, using the brute weight of my body to tackle him to the ground. The elevator dings as the doors try to close but with both of our bodies lying on the floor between the elevator doors, they won't close.

The elevator starts ringing, that sound piercing through my ears. From behind me I hear a pair of shoes collide with the floor of the elevator.

It's Anna.

She lunges forward, slipping past me and out of the elevator. She twists on her feet to face me. And though I have the situation handled, she leaps into action. She pulls back her foot and then launches it forward, her shoe connecting with the back of the man's head.

He tries to throw his hands over his head so that he can shield against the next attack. That gives me the perfect opportunity to deliver a knockout blow squarely on his cheek. My eyes rise to meet Anna's.

And in those dark beautiful eyes, I see a warrior. A fighter. I see someone who is blooming into her own strong person right before my eyes, and I can't help but to feel proud of her. I can't help but to feel even more attracted to her right now that I have ever felt in my life.

And that's saying something, because I have had my eyes set on her since the day I first saw her. Maybe when this is all over, we can go on a real date. Maybe we could actually be something together.

Now is not the time to think about that.

I jump to my feet, race out of the elevator, and grab Anna by the hand. There's a part of my head telling me that we should have stayed in the elevator. It's saying that we could have taken the elevator back to the ground floor and got the hell out of this building. But I also know that there is a more than good chance that Mitch would be there waiting for us.

I will work to find a different way out of here. Weighing the options in my head, I feel like it is the better decision to take these men out one by one. And then we will escape this place, go back to the factory, get the team together and go finally end this Seth Grimm bullshit once and for all.

As we are racing down the hallway, I hear commotion from just around a sharp corner. Next, I see the shadows of men running down the same hallway. I come to a dead stop, causing Anna to also do the same. She almost loses her footing before I am dragging her backwards and away from the adjacent hallway. My eyes search for an escape route.

But the only option I can come up with is to take a hard right into what looks like a conference room. I drop my hand around the door knob, but it doesn't budge. I crane my head over my shoulder to see that the shadows and the flashlights are approaching quicker and quicker, closer and closer.

I throw the weight of my body against the door, causing it to pop open. I rush inside with Anna following right behind and close the door as quietly as I can. There's a lock on the door, but when I spin it, it doesn't click into place. I take a few measured steps back before pushing Anna gently to the side and out of the way from the door window.

She crouches down in the corner next to the door and I join her, taking a knee in front of her as flashlights light the hallway outside. Through the long rectangular window on the door, I can see a group of at least six or seven men running by. They know that we are either on this floor or in a stairwell somewhere. Most likely they will start searching this floor room by room and once they get to this room in particular, we need to either have a solid game plan or we need to be gone.

After I'm sure the last of the men have passed us by, I rise to my feet and my eyes search around the room. There's a long conference table with at least twelve chairs on either side of the wooden table.

There are no other doors inside this room, with the only door being the one we came in. I don't want to risk going out that door in case the men are already on their way back. Or they could still be waiting outside. Either way it's too much of a gamble. The worst thing that could happen right now is for the both of us to be apprehended because I'm pretty sure these people aren't going to play nice when they finally deliver me to whomever I'm supposed to be delivered to.

Like I said, I always knew this would come back to bite me in the ass. I should have just stayed away, should have just stayed in the Caribbean.

Anna drags the back of her palm against the top of her forehead, wiping away a thin layer of sweat that has dampened the edge of her hairline. I move forward to comfort her, but she takes a measured step back.

“What's wrong?” I questioned her, taken aback.

"Nothing." She shakes her head and bites into her lip, her eyes shift around the room like she's looking for something in particular. "I think I know a way out of here."

"Have you been here before?"

"No," she says, her teeth chewing harder into her lip. "But I've read about this property and the property listings before. It's been on the market for over a year and I don't know why. I'm starting to gather suspicion that the reason it hasn't sold is because the entire thing is a facade, like it's not even for sale at all.”

I'm not following the logic or what she's trying to say.

She continues, “Which I know might not seem important right now. But I have read about this property many times. I even talked to Dom once about maybe renting out one of the floors for a proper office."

"Look, while I appreciate your trivia smarts, you're being long winded and we don't have a lot of time.”

She scoffs lightly. Shakes her head and wets her lips. “I do that sometimes. The point I'm trying to get at is that I read that there are numerous panic rooms in this building."

My eyes widen, knowing that if we could find one of those before the power is cut, it could be our ticket out of here. "Do you know where they are?”

"I'm hoping there's one in this room." She brushes past me, the friction of her body against me more than welcome. She begins shuffling her hands along the wall, feeling for any cracks or grooves that might indicates that there is a hidden passageway somewhere in here. "I know there's at least one in one of the conference rooms, but in a building this big, there are probably close to 100 conference rooms."

I pace to the opposite wall that she is checking and start running my hands along the wall. Just as I start assisting, I hear her yelp from behind me. I twist around on my feet, my heart racing. But instead of seeing something I don't want to see, for example a man with his hands around her throat once more, she is standing beside an open passageway on the far wall.

“God must be watching after us or something.” She laughs nervously. “Let's go.”

I stand there for a good minute, just looking at her and taking notice of how amazing she is. She is the entire package. Flashlights light up the sidewall of the conference room. The men are coming back.

I rush forward, slipping past her and leading the way. The door closes behind us, hopefully obfuscating the fact that there's a secret door there.

The passageway is low and narrow. I'm too tall to stand up comfortably and have to hunch over so that I don't hit my head. The height of the ceiling seems to be perfect for Anna who traverses down the short passageway with ease.

It is completely silent in this hall, where the only thing we can here is our own shoes patting against the floor. Pale dim lights light up the hallway. They're not very bright but they do the trick, highlighting the door at the end of the hallway.

Once we arrive at the door, I'm expecting the panic room to require a passcode or something, but it doesn't. I place my hand into the latch and pull it open. The thick steel door opens with a loud creak before the both of us rush inside.

I twist on my feet and pull the door closed. There is a digital panel beside the door. There's an alert flashing on the screen, Engage Security Systems?

There are two options beneath the question.

Yes or no.

I swipe my thumb against the yes option and from within the walls, I can hear whirring and then the sound of locks latching into place. From all around the room, I can hear the walls screaming. It's like the actual walls that surround the panic room are moving in place.

I look back to Anna to see her looking at me in a way that makes my cock twitch against my denim jeans.