“Come. We’ll go back downstairs. It will be safe there.”
They hurried through the casino back to the hidden door. Once inside the stairwell, they dropped all pretense that nothing was wrong, and raced to the bottom level.
Mila exited the stairwell first, and paused just beyond the door, not remembering which way to go.
“To the right!” Julien yelled.
As she turned, he moved past her, and led her to the safe room.
“Get in,” he said, after he opened the door.
She scooted by him, but when he didn’t join her, she said, “Julien?”
“Just stay quiet. I’m going to go check.”
“No. Stay here with me.”
“I’ll be right back.”
He shut the door, not letting her say anything else. She stared after him for a second, then settled on the floor. The flashlight she’d dropped earlier was lying nearby as if it had been waiting for her return. She picked it up, thinking it wasn’t exactly the best weapon in the world, but it was all she had.
Later, Julien told her what had happened after he left.
He’d headed straight for the stairwell, then propped open the door and stood at the bottom, listening for anyone who might be coming down. For the first couple of minutes, there was nothing, then he heard the door at the top open.
Given the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of employees working at the hotel at that very moment, there was no way to know for sure who it might’ve been, but this particular set of stairs was supposed to be seldom used.
He slipped inside, and quietly shut the door behind him.
There were footsteps heading down. A single pair. If it were an employee, Julien would have expected to hear either the rapid clomps of someone in a hurry, or the leisurely yet purposeful taps of a person trying to waste a little time between tasks.
These steps were light, with no rhythm to them at all.
Step. Stop. Step-step. Stop. Step. Step. Step. Stop.
When the footsteps reached the landing for the first basement level, they paused. For a long moment, nothing happened, then the door opened. Noise from the considerably more active floor leaked into the stairwell for about five seconds before being cut off by the door closing again.
Steps once more. Heading toward the bottom now. As soon as they reached the midway landing, the person would be able to see Julien.
Careful not to make a sound, Julien let himself back out into the lower basement, then concealed himself around the side of a humming metal container that was riveted to the floor. Keeping as close to the front end as possible, he listened for the door.
Though he heard nothing, he suddenly had the sense he was no longer alone. Whoever had been in the stairwell had come into the basement without making a sound.
But where were they? Just inside the door? Already moving off? Where?
Merde!
Merde, merde, merde, merde, merde!
Reluctantly, he leaned forward to take a look.
The spotter was there, all right. Only he wasn’t just inside the door, or walking away. He was standing three feet on the other side of the metal box, looking right at Julien.
Julien pulled his head back as the man’s fist flew out. It glanced off the top of his ear but did no real damage.
There was no exit behind him, just a narrow space hemmed in by the metal containers. Heading in that direction would surely get him killed. He held his position until he caught the first glimpse of movement, then he rushed forward, charging like a bull.
The spotter tried to get out of the way, but Julien caught him in the ribs, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. More times than not, that would have been all it took. Julien’s bulk and strength rendered most of his opponents useless.
To his dismay, the spotter was not one of those people. Even as the man’s body was being smashed between the wall and Julien’s shoulder, he grabbed Julien’s long hair and pulled it back as hard as he could. With a groan, Julien was forced to tilt his head back just enough so that the spotter could whack Julien in the cheek.
As Julien twisted away in pain, the man pushed in the other direction and broke free.
Julien reached out, trying to grab the back of the spotter’s shirt, but missed. The man ran down the narrow hallway, and Julien took off after him. The guy was smaller and quicker on his feet, so the gap between them increased.
Desperate, Julien burst forward, attempting to regain lost ground. When he reached a point only a few feet back, he grasped at the man again, this time latching on to the guy’s shirt.
As the spotter tried to turn down an intersecting corridor, Julien yanked on his shirt, pulling him backward.
Chaos took over as the two men collided, their feet tangling together. With a loud thud, they crashed to the floor.
Since Julien was on the bottom, he hit hardest, his head bouncing off the concrete. In a daze, he barely felt it when the spotter hit him in the head.
The second hit, he didn’t feel at all.
CHAPTER 37
Julien, where the hell are you? Mila wondered.
He’d said he would be right back, but ten minutes was not what she considered right back.
What should she do? Stay? See if he needed help? Make a run for it?
What?
Three more minutes, she decided. Three more minutes and if he’s not back, I’ll go look for him.
And if you don’t find him?
She stared into the darkness, and whispered, “Then I run.”
She began counting off the seconds in her head, each tick bringing growing certainty that something horrible had happened to him.
Sixty-eight. Sixty-nine. Seventy.
That he might even be dead.
One twenty-nine. One thirty. One thirty-one. One thirty-two.
That she would never see him again.
One forty-five. One forty A foot scraped against the concrete right outside the door.
“Julien?” Her lips moved, but no sound left her throat.
The knob turned slowly until it could move no more, and the door opened.
Squinting at the entrance, she instantly knew it wasn’t Julien. There were two people, and neither the shape of her old boyfriend.
“Huh,” one of the shadows said, surprised but not surprised.
As they moved into the room, one of them leaned over, flicked on the light, and shut the door.
She had never seen these men before, but she was sure they were her assassins. The shorter of the two hung back closer to the door. The tall one kept coming until he was only a few feet away from Mila. As he looked down at her, he smirked.
“Mila Voss,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Pain shot through Julien’s head as he tried to open his eyes. He had no sense of where he was or what had
