Page 147 of Shades of Grey & Gold

“You. Are. Dead. You. Died.” I force the words out, but I’m suffocating on each one.

“I didn’t.” A voice I haven’t heard in exactly seventy-one days is right on the other side of the door, low but steady. “Please.” The voice cracks. “Please let me explain, Sims.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

Cal ~FLASHBACK~

“Run.”

I tell her to run in this disgusting fucking kitchen they held her in for days and thank the fucking universe she listens.

The kitchen door springs backward behind Max as she runs out of the space, and for one second in this grimy, disgusting kitchen, I breathe in pure relief among the old grease hangingin the air.

All I hear is the sound of her footfalls getting lighter and lighter as she continues to the door.

A part of me expected her to turn around, to wait for me.

All of me is relieved she didn’t.

There’s no getting out of here without bloodshed—mine or theirs.

Or both.

My gun is hanging off my index finger with the barrel pointed at the ceiling. I look at the men standing in front of me wondering if they think they’ve got me.

They probably think I’m more or less disarmed, and three pistols are pointed at me as they each take a step forward.

The other man has his gun pressed against my forehead.

“Ah, ah, boys.” My voice comes out on a laugh, and I stretch my palms wide, my index finger flexing from inside the trigger guard. “Should we have a conversation before all this goes down?”

The oldest of the men laughs, but it comes out strangled, like he’s high on the fact that he thinks he has me caught. Like he thinks this is over, and he is going to bring me back to his boss—dead or alive.

“For what?” His voice is hard on the consonants and carries a thick accent.

The other man moves towards the door that Max ran out of, and I frown as he lifts a cellphone to his ear.

“We have Renzetti.” His accent is thick, but he says the words loudly enough to make a point and smiles at me.

He nods and slips the phone back in his pocket.

“They want her, too. After her!” The older man nods at the younger of the three, and before either takes a step, I flick my wrist.

The metal of the pistol spins down my index finger, landing solidly in my palm, and I don’t wait.

I step quickly to the right.

Two shots. The first man who was headed for Max gets out the door after her. Nico will take care of him.

The one in the back of the kitchen goes down immediately.

The one in front of me, who had been holding the gun to my head, fires at nothing. Then he follows his buddy down to the ground as I get a third shot off.

His own shot goes wide, into the hood behind me above the fryer bank and I hear the crack of something behind the wall.

Then a hiss. Then the smell of gas, low and immediate, threading through the grease-thick air like a warning.

I move towards the same door Max went through before I hear the click of a pistol.