Chapter 259 Chapter 259: Olive’s POV
Chapter 259 Chapter 259: Olive’s POV
Chapter 259: Olive’s POV
The corridor outside the room was darker than I expected, lit only by the emergency strips along the floor, and somewhere ahead of us, the sound of gunshot cracked twice, then again, faster this time and suddenly stopped.
“Stay behind me,” Zane said again, like the first six times hadn’t landed.
“I heard you.”
“I mean it, Muffin.” Heat sparked between my thighs, ‘god I was so fucked up’
“I know you mean it. I’m still walking next to you, not behind you.”
He didn’t have the energy left to fight me on it properly. I could see that in the way his shoulders dropped half an inch, in the way his jaw worked instead of arguing, and we kept moving together through a corridor that smelled like gun smoke and concrete dust, toward wherever Simon had run to hide.
A figure stepped out from a side passage ahead of us.
Zane’s gun came up before I’d even registered the movement.
“Don’t,” the figure said, both hands already raised, palms out. “I’m not here to fight.”
The figure slowly stepped out from the dark and a gasp escaped from my lips.
Alonso.
His face was a mess, one eye swollen half-shut, blood dried along his jaw, walking like every step cost him something he didn’t have left to spend. He stood very still, hands still raised, gun nowhere in sight and he looked different, a part of his face looked scarred and burnt.
This was the first time I was seeing him without the mask.
“Give me a reason not to shoot you right now,”
Zane said. His voice was flat. Steady. Not taking aback by his face.
“I don’t have one that’ll matter to you,” Alonso said. “Not yet. But I know where Simon’s hiding. I know this building better than anyone left alive in it tonight, and I’m the only person who can get you to him before he disappears again.”
“Why would you help me?”
Alonso sighed, and when he raised his head up, his teeth barred together with anger and this pure look of bloody revenge.
“Because I spent so many years hating you for something that was never your fault to begin with,” Alonso said. “And I’d like one chance to be on the right side of something before I die for it. I want Simon dead…for lying to me…for using me… and for hurting you.”
Neither of us moved for a long second.
For a split second, I felt pity for him, but then I remembered that he was a jackass who has put I and my family in so much trouble.
Zane didn’t lower the gun.
“You don’t get forgiveness,” he said. “Not from me. Not tonight.”
“I’m not asking for it.”
“Then what are you asking for.”
“Nothing,” Alonso said. “I’m telling you. He’s three doors down, in the old loading office. And he’s not running anymore. He’s waiting for you.”
Zane lowered the gun, slow, like it cost him something physical to do it.
“Walk in front of me,” he said. “Where I can see you the whole way.”
Alonso nodded and turned, leading us deeper into the dark, and I felt Zane’s hand find mine for just a second, quick, grounding, before he let go again and put himself half a step ahead of me toward whatever was waiting three doors down.