“French?”
“Swiss, but he really only speaks French. I think I can talk him out from under the desk, and I can help with Sharon.”
“Ezio can get Sharon, I already saw him in action with Rafa’s girlfriends at the food truck. He’s a natural. She’ll be putty in his hands.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve got a problem,” Max said urgently. “Big. The jeeps are moving out to make way for the tank. Get those civilians the hell out of there, now!” Asher knew that everyone on the transmission got the message.
“Ezio, you heard your job,” Asher told his teammate.
“Yep, go charm the screamer. Easy, I’ve got this. That means I’ll be scooping up at least four civilians. Probably a guard or two by then.”
“Eden and I are going to the office. That will give us four.”
“That leaves us eight who are scattered,” Raiden said. “If we get them, then we’ll come help you and Eden.”
“Negative,” Asher answered. “There will be three of us—Leland will be a calm head helping us. You go to Ezio first.”
There was a pause. “Agreed,” Cullen and Raiden said at the same time.
Because of the slippery lobby floor, Eden fell on her ass when the first blast hit. She scrambled to get up, but Asher covered her body.
“Stay down,” he hissed.
She stilled. Another concussion hit, followed by crashing sounds and shattering glass, but Asher’s body kept her from moving.
“So now I know what a tank hit feels like,” she tried to tease. But truly she was beginning to get scared. She hated scared. Mad. Pissed. Angry. Those were acceptable feelings. Not scared. Being scared was for pussies.
She shoved at Asher’s shoulders, the part of him that wasn’t covered with Kevlar. The part that was all muscle. Okay, feeling lustful. That was one of the good feelings too.
“Let me up,” she demanded.
“They’re not done.”
“Well, we have to hurry then,” she growled up at him. Because of the dim light, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she saw his jaw tense as his teeth probably ground together. She had that effect on men.
“You’re just going to slide on your ass again. We wait.”
Another blast, this time much worse, and she felt hot, humid air hit her. Oh, holy hell. They’d blasted through the bank wall. It sounded like the entire building was shrieking in pain as parts of it collapsed.
Sharon’s shrieking had stopped between the second and third blast. Eden prayed it was because Ezio had gotten her to safety.
“Oh hell no.” Even through the cacophony of sound, Ezio’s anguished words got through to Eden. She prayed to God that he was all right. That Sharon was all right.
Asher got up and found her shoes. “Put these on.”
She did, and then he hauled her to her feet.
She looked around. Holy mother of God, there was a hole the size of a truck where the highly polished bronze doors of the entrance used to be.
“Quit staring, the tank is going to start rolling in. We’ve got to get to the office to show them the way out of here,” Asher hollered. He had to yell because there was cement, wood, and stone crashing down around the hole and the sound was tremendous.
Now that the moonlight was shining in, Eden could see better. She saw Asher whip off his night-vision goggles as she ran toward Suzanne’s office. Eden was not surprised to see men coming out. Leland was looking around, and when he spotted Asher and Eden, he grabbed at Carlson and Becker, but was only able to stop Carlson.
“Mike, go with him,” Leland said, pointing at Asher. “He can lead you to safety.”
Carlson ripped out of his grip.
“Fuck you, Hines,” Carlson said before he took off across the lobby toward the teller cages.
What the hell?
“Leland,” Asher yelled over the crumbling building. It was as if an earthquake had hit. Two of the gigantic light fixtures crashed down in the center of the lobby, glass shooting out everywhere. There was more screaming and yelling.
Eden heard people hollering in Spanish and English, trying to relay instructions. Please God, say people will get to safety.
She needed to focus—she might not like the man, but she needed to get to Maurice Schlessinger. Eden continued to run the rest of the way to the office, Asher at her side. The door was hanging off its hinges.
“Let me go first. It’s not stable,” Asher said. Both of the windows were blown out. The bookcase had been torn from the wall and was teetering on top of one of the leather chairs. But the desk was solid.
“Maurice,” Eden called out. “Come out from under the desk. We can get you to safety.”
Nothing.
“Maurice,” she called louder.
Asher crouched down to look under the desk. “He’s dead.”
“But the desk should have protected him,” Eden protested. She tried to shove past Asher so she could see for herself, but he blocked her. That didn’t stop her from seeing an ever-widening pool of blood.
“What happened?” she asked in horror.
“A piece of glass got him in the jugular. He didn’t have a chance.” Asher stood up. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”
Eden looked down at her shoes. They were bloody. She couldn’t help taking a quick step backwards.
Dammit. Maurice didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved this.
Eden clamped her teeth together hard, so she wouldn’t whimper.
Asher grabbed her hand. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
She finally noticed that more dust was falling down on them, and that there was a loud rumbling that was getting noticeably louder. “What’s that?”
“The
