I turned around again and reached for the next book, but the wall slid open before I could touch it. I jerked my head around to look back at Mount as he spoke.

“Look closer to home, Hennessy. You’re missing something.”

With those cryptic words, he turned his back on me, and I bolted out into the maze.

I’m coming, Ari.

38

Rhett

I had my phone to my ear the second I hit the front door, bolting down the sidewalk toward the street where I’d parked my Jeep near Noble Art.

“Rhett?” Ari’s voice sounded scratchier than normal, like the connection was fuzzy.

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t freak out,” she whispered.

Normally it took a hell of a lot to shake me, but where Ari was concerned, all my reactions shifted. Keeping my cool if she was in trouble wasn’t possible.

“Too late. Tell me what’s going on.” I dodged a crowd of pedestrians and almost took out a street performer’s dog wearing a tuxedo. My heart hammered, not because of the exertion, but because of a memory.

Heath and I had been playing football in the front yard as Ari came walking down the street, one arm hanging limply and the other pushing her bike alongside her. Blood had dripped down one leg, and when we’d noticed her as she turned her bike up the driveway, the first thing she’d told us was don’t freak out.

“I’m in the panic room. I’m safe.”

I didn’t even know she had a panic room in that place, but the thought of what could have happened to make her lock herself inside made me want to kill someone. “What the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. I just . . . I got spooked and I don’t know who to trust anymore, so I’m taking precautions.”

Only Ari could sound so calm while locked in a fucking panic room. I finally saw my Jeep up ahead. The day she’d broken her arm, she hadn’t even cried, even though her bone was sticking through the skin. My parents and her dad had gone to Baton Rouge for the day, and they’d left Mr. Sampson’s patrol car at home. Heath and I had hustled Ari into the car, and I’d broken so many frigging laws when I jumped into the driver’s seat, flipped on the siren, and hauled ass to the hospital, driving through red lights and cutting off traffic.

Something about her being hurt had taken my hardened sense of right and wrong and thrown it out the window until she was safe again.

“But you’re okay? You’re not injured?”

“I’m fine, Rhett. I swear. I’m just . . . being careful.”

I could tell there was a hell of a lot that she wasn’t saying, but I’d get there as soon as I could. I dug my keys out of my pocket and hopped in the Jeep, putting my phone on speaker and dropping it on the passenger seat before I fired up the engine.

“Does Carver know you’re in there?” I checked the rearview mirror and backed up to get out of my parallel parking spot.

“Not exactly.”

My hands gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary. “Did he do something?”

“I don’t know, but I’m trying to figure it out, I swear. I disabled the sensor that would’ve notified him when I engaged the door. He was out in the garage, last I knew.”

I tried to keep my voice calm as I floored the gas pedal and roared down the street. “None of this makes any sense, Ari. He’s there to protect you—”

She cut me off, and the fear in her tone finally came through. “It’s not safe to talk about on the phone. Please. Just get here.”

I softened my voice. “Hold tight, Red. I’m on my way.”

39

Ariel

Dramatics weren’t my thing. Being capable was. But when my fingers went to work and I couldn’t figure out how someone could have deleted the security footage, I went down another path. Carlos. The things I found chilled my blood, and it didn’t take long before I knew I was in way over my head.

I was a realist. Bad people were everywhere. Evil existed. And even knowing this, I was still a naive, trusting idiot, and I’d stumbled into the crosshairs of something I wasn’t equipped to handle on my own.

Cyber threats? No problem.

Cocky hackers? I could handle that.

A man standing over me close enough to kill me while inside a secured estate? Um, nope. It turned out I couldn’t handle that all by myself once I figured out who had sent him.

I might have been naive, but I wasn’t stupid. As soon as I discovered what I’d walked into, I knew I had to tell Rhett. I probably could have worded my text better so as not to send him into a panic, but I needed to get him here as quickly as possible, and apparently, that worked.

I looked around the safe room, thankful it was well-appointed. It had been another huge draw when I’d selected this house from Erik and Esme’s list. Whoever had built it must have been a security nut. It was a dream setup, and the price of the rental had reflected that.

The room was upscale—white plaster walls covering eighteen-inch concrete walls reinforced with thick steel sheets. If someone just stumbled into it through the master bedroom closet, it would be easy to assume it was a luxurious dressing room, given the ornate cabinets lining two walls, the island in the center topped with a slab of fancy granite, and the massive leather sofas.

That was, until you locked the door and engaged the hydraulics, and the whole place gave itself a little makeover. The cabinets pulled away to reveal a security center with dedicated landlines separate from the rest of the house, and a cell-signal amplifier strong enough to penetrate the walls.

This was the second main access point to the security system, with the first being in the garage with Carver. I’d hooked up my laptop and gotten to work. Instead of using my cell, which I wasn’t entirely sure was safe, I set my number to work through a secured VOIP connection.

I’d texted Rhett through another secure channel, and decided to keep Carver unaware until I knew whether he could be trusted.

Now, I was set up with my laptop on the luxurious queen-sized bed that had transformed from one sofa when the hydraulics kicked on. I’d helped myself to a bottle of water from the fridge and a package of Oreos from the pantry—both stocked for the apocalypse.