Risky Obsession (Wolf Security #3)

3. Lacey

CHAPTER 3

Lacey

P ain radiated through the wounded fingers, and the cut on my calf oozed blood down my jeans. My battered body screamed at me to stop trying to break into the room where Grant had escaped and get my wounds looked at, but I couldn’t. He had escaped through a secret door, and I had to catch that bastard before he got away.

I checked my bullets. Just four left. “Son of a bitch.”

I’d wasted too many rounds trying to shoot my way through the door, but they’d ricocheted off the thick steel.

Gritting my teeth, I yanked bottles of expensive-looking whisky off the shelving, shattering them on the floor as I searched for the locking mechanism for the door.

I’d smashed dozens of bottles before I found a retina scanner.

Shit!

Taking aim, I fired at the scanning device. The door jolted inward, and I lurched forward, halting it before it shut again. I wriggled through the gap and hobbled into a dimly lit room. A click resonated behind me.

I spun back to the shut door. There wasn’t a handle to re-open it. The only way to go back through that exit was via a code entered into a keypad on the side wall.

Fuck! I’m trapped.

Crouching down, I strained to hear Hughes. The place was as silent as a morgue. Clutching my throbbing hand to my chest, I crossed the room, aiming for cover next to the floor-to-ceiling shelving that ran the full length of the wall.

The room smelled of dust and the musty scent of old paper. Dust particles danced beneath the fluorescent light in the distant ceiling which housed a couple of dead flies. This storage area was the opposite of the opulence on the other side of the wall.

The far side wall had a treadmill, exercise bike, and a rowing machine still in its cardboard box. Clearly, Grant had more money than a dedication to exercise.

I searched the distant shadows for movement, but all was still. Where is he?

The room seemed to close in on me, threatening to suffocate me with its oppressive darkness. Using my phone flashlight, I limped farther along the wall. Pain shot from the gash on my leg up to my groin, and I winced at the agony. That cut was going to need stitches, but I’d had worse.

Where are you, you bastard?

I guided my light to the shelving that seemed to stretch forever. Archive boxes were crammed into every space labeled in black marker pen. My gaze snagged on a name, and my heart skidded to a halt: Mark Kincaid.

He was also Mason Kingsman, Australia’s deputy prime minister, who was as corrupt as my first boyfriend. Kingsman was also dead after a battle with Aria and her team didn’t go the way that bastard had planned.

Holy shit! Did I just stumble on a cache of incriminating evidence?

My fingers shook in pain as I took photos of the boxes. Each new piece of evidence felt like a small triumph. Maybe we could finally put an end to Chui’s reign of terror and lock up every other bastard who worked with him.

I hit the video button on my phone and hobbled along the row of shelves, ensuring I captured some of the labels on the vast collection of boxes with my footage.

My heart raced. There had to be at least a hundred boxes here. A ton of evidence, and not just on Grant Hughes. This could bring down the entire criminal empire we’d been trying to crack for years. If Hughes had documents on Kingsman, he might have it on the other four Kincaid brothers, including Frank, Aria’s dad.

My mind whirled. Could this also lead us to the woman named B? We hadn’t found anything about her since her name cropped up during the investigation into the poor trafficking victims who had died in the shipping container that had been found bobbing on the ocean.

Keeping a watch over my shoulder, I moved faster, but there were so many boxes. It was going to take a huge amount of manpower and time to go through all this paperwork.

Excitement blazed through me. Aria will be ecstatic. And my captain.

We’d been trying to figure out who Chui’s accountant was ever since Indiana and Kingsley had found the encrypted hard drive on the bottom of the ocean.

If Hughes was Chui’s accountant, then the bastard would be desperate to flee.

I scanned the room. Where is he?

My wounded fingers stung like a bitch, but I clenched my teeth, riding waves of adrenaline and pain as I shuffled along the wall.

A slight red glow emanated from a little further down, and I hobbled toward it.

My heart stopped. On the wall was a ticking detonation device. Its glowing red digits counted down the seconds.

“Oh fuck.” Panic surged through me.

I had four minutes until that thing reached zero. I have to get out of here.

But I’m trapped.

No, Hughes must have escaped. Fear raced up my spine as I clutched my throbbing hand to my chest, and forcing my legs to move, I hurried in the opposite direction.

My mind screamed at me to get the fuck out of there.

Pain blazed up my leg. Nausea burned in my stomach.

I clenched my jaw and kept moving. I am not dying here.

Up ahead, a rectangular bar on the floor in the dim distance looked out of place. Shining my light forward, I sprinted toward it.

A gold bar. My breath hitched.

A lion emblem was embossed on the smooth surface.

“Yes.”

This was absolute proof that Hughes was connected to Chui.

Above the gold, a square hatch cover was in the wall, like a laundry chute door. I yanked it open and peered into the black tunnel.

This must be how he escaped .

I snatched the gold from the floor. It may be the only physical proof left if he’d set the detonation to blow up his entire house.

I slid feet-first into the dark, narrow passage and a scream tore from my throat and echoed back to me as the cold metal walls scraped my elbows.

The chute spat me out at the end, and I flew through the air and crashed shoulder-first onto a large plexiglass platform.

Wind whipped my hair around, and a thumping beat roared in my ears.

I rolled over. “Son of a bitch!”

A helicopter hovered right over me like a vulture waiting to pick at my remains. In the cockpit was Hughes. His face, twisted with a malicious grin, stared down at me from behind the chopper’s controls.

I pulled my gun from my pocket and fired.

The chopper banked away.

“No!” I dragged my aching body upright and fired my last two bullets at the tail end of the chopper.

The helicopter dipped wildly, then it gained air as it flew away over the ocean.

“Fuck!” I screamed at the diminishing chopper.

My entire body throbbed as I scooped my hair from my face, scanning my surroundings.

I stood on a glass helicopter pad that only a rich bastard could afford. It was attached to the rocks by giant metal girders. High above me loomed the gray walls of Grant’s mansion and through the glass at my feet, ocean waves crashed forty feet below.

A deafening boom echoed through the air, followed by three more.

A firestorm consumed the entire hill as the multi-million-dollar mansion exploded.

The glass below my feet shattered to pieces.

Screaming, I fell through the floor.