Page 105 of Breaking Rosalind
When Gil and Tony burst through the crowd, each holding weapons, a part of me relaxes. Gil presses his fingers to his ears, looking like he’s in communication with our people watching the security cameras.
I look beyond the pair with my gun still trained on the stragglers in case one of them tries to shoot our men in the back.
A dark-haired woman in a black dress emerges from the crowd with her hand in her purse, using their larger bodies as cover. She has the same athletic frame and precise movements as Rosalind, but twice the audacity.
She’s trying to complete the mission.
Our two men run shoulder to shoulder toward us with their weapons drawn, oblivious to the little viper.
“Tony,” I yell. “Behind you.”
The bald man spins around. Instead of shooting the woman, he charges at her like a linebacker and knocks her onto her back. Gil glances over his shoulder to find Tony punching her into unconsciousness. Seeing that his friend is fine, he continues toward where we’re crouched on the stage.
That’s two shooters down. If what Rosalind said was the truth, there’s at least one left. I glance around, my blood roaring in my ears. They could be anyone. Anywhere.
Gil mounts the stage and speaks to my brothers. Movement out of the corner of my eye tells me that Roman survived the hit. There’s no time for relief because we still haven’t identified the other assassins.
My pulse pounds in my eardrums as I scan the emptying ballroom. Somewhere on the edge of my awareness and mingled in the panicked screams, Roman yells something about his missing guest.
Gil mutters something about finding the man who shot Roman, but that’s irrelevant. There wasn’t one gunman but an entire team of assassins.
Benito grabs my shoulder, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Emberly is gone.”
“Forget her,” I snap. “We need to find the Moirai?—”
“Leave that to the others.” He pulls me up to standing. “We can’t let Emberly escape.”
I love my brothers, but their priorities are fucked. Instead of working together to track down the assassins, they want to hunt down the crazy balcony woman to swindle her out of a stolen inheritance.
Roman runs in the direction the woman left, while Benito takes another exit. I don’t give a shit about getting back the casino and all the other bullshit Emberly’s father stole from Dad, so I jog toward where Tony is dragging the female assassin toward the body of the man I shot.
As I walk off the stage and down its steps, the phone in my jacket buzzes. I pull it out of my pocket, finding multiple notifications from the surveillance app. My adrenaline spikes, and I open up the camera feed.
The bathroom is empty.
While the Moirai was shooting my brother, Rosalind slithered out of her chains and escaped.
My jaw clenches. All this time, she must have been in contact with her firm, waiting for the right moment to stab me in the back.
If she’s somewhere on the grounds, I will find her.
When I do, I will hit her where it hurts.
FORTY-ONE
ROSALIND
Cesare didn’t even have the decency to leave my chains long enough for me to sit on the floor. If he had, then I could have reached the sink and worked out a way to escape the bathroom.
Only one thing is better than being in the dungeon, and that’s the lack of flickering light.
The bastard secured my chains to a pipe and heavy-weight hooks. No matter how much I throw my weight backward, it’s no use. I’ll be in this bathroom for hours, maybe even days, until Cesare decides to play his sick games.
Leaning my head against the tiled wall, I strike the wall with the metal hand-split, trying to at least free one finger. When that doesn’t work, I chew at the thick cuff around my wrists, which might as well be shoe leather. These shackles aren’t BDSM gear. They’re the type of heavy-weight restraints that belong to a government agency.
I won’t give up trying. It’s just a matter of time before I find the chain’s weakest link.
The clanking of metal breaks me out of my thoughts. It’s coming from the playroom, sounding like someone is trying to find their way in. Stiffening, I glance toward the door.