Page 50 of Tough Luck

Suddenly, an idea came to me. If I was out of the way, Rick and Marcus could just leave back the way they came. Then the police could get Leonard, ensuring all our safety.

When I found my opening, I was going to try to make it to the door once more. Now, however, I scrambled backward into the deep darkness, my hands scraping against the dusty floor.

I remembered the inside joke we had shared over the campaign pitch—the phrase we said would be the literal password to escape into the brewery’s hidden speakeasy whenever corporate stress got to be too much.

“Rick!” I called out, my voice throwing across the concrete rafters. “The boss is wrong!”

I shouted it with everything I had, praying that he understood the hidden message—that I was referencing the speakeasy, and that I was going to try and escape through the hidden passage that led to the secure side of the active building.

For a fraction of a second, the warehouse went dead silent. Then Rick’s voice boomed back, instantly catching on to the code, his tone hard and fast.

“Sofia! You’re fired!”

It was our matching punchline. I smiled through the dark, the fear completely evaporating from my limbs. Seeing my opening while Leonard spun toward the sound of Rick’s voice, I bolted from behind the pallets and rushed toward the door.

Chapter 21

Rick

I watched in horror as a small dark shadow rushed from behind a stack of barrels and crates, heading directly toward a much larger shadow.

I held my breath. I wanted to shout out, to warn her, but the two shadows passed by and kept going.

I heard something slam into something else and then a loud scream, followed by a thud of something being thrown.

Without waiting, I rushed back toward where Marcus was. I turned down aisle after aisle, almost getting lost in the dark. I had just turned a corner when I came face to face with Leonard.

“There you are.” The man’s smile was going to be imprinted on my mind forever. There was something off about the man, something that hadn’t been there the last time I’d seen him.

“Leonard,” I said, trying to keep my tone calm.

“You think just because you’re some rich brat who took over for his daddy that you know anything about what people want?” he spat out.

I didn’t contradict him, knowing it wouldn’t be helpful. Instead, I tried to change tactics.

“We could talk this through, find a place for you.” I wasn’t lying. The man obviously needed help.

Leonard’s eyes narrowed. “There is no place for me. That bitch ruined everything I had. She lied and, because you wanted between her legs, you fell for it.”

A white-hot flash of pure fury surged through my veins at his words, but I forced my jaw to stay shut, locking the rage down. I couldn’t react. I couldn’t let him see how much he was getting to me. The heavy click of the speakeasy door sealing from the other side echoed distantly through the rafters, a beautiful, solid confirmation that Sofia was safely on the other side of that brick wall.

She was out. She was secure. Now I just had to survive this room.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Leonard,” I said, my voice dropping into a steady, deliberate tone as I kept my phone’s flashlight pointed slightly downward, lighting the space between us without blinding him into a sudden panic. “Nobody took anything from you. You made your own choices. But you can still choose how this night ends.”

“Don’t patronize me!” he shrieked, his knuckles turning white around the handle of the gun. He took a ragged step forward. “You think you’re untouchable? Look around you! Your precious brewery account doesn’t mean a damn thing in the dark.”

“You’re right,” I said, keeping my hands up, open and non-threatening, slowly stepping backward to draw him further down the central aisle, away from the exit Sofia had used. I needed to stretch the seconds. I needed to buy time. “The account doesn’t matter. The agency doesn’t matter. It’s just you and me right now. Tell me what you want, Leonard. If it’s money, if it’s a settlement—we can talk about it.”

“I want her to suffer like I suffered the past few months! I lost everything,” he barked, his eyes darting erratically to the shadows, his paranoia clearly mounting. “I want you to feel what it’s like to watch everything you built get ripped out of your hands!”

“I already know what that feels like,” I countered quietly, my voice slicing through his manic breathing. “My father died less than a month ago. I know exactly what it’s like to have the rug pulled out from under your life. It breaks you. But this? This isn’t the way back.”

He froze, his chest heaving under his dark jacket, my words striking a temporary chord in his fractured psyche.

As he hesitated, a faint movement in the deep shadows behind his left shoulder caught my eye. My heart leaped, but I kept my gaze locked dead on Leonard’s face, refusing to let my eyes betray the shift.

Marcus was moving slowly toward us. He was incredibly pale, a dark smear of blood matting the hair on the side of his head, but his eyes were open and tracking Leonard’s back. He was gripping a thick wooden shipping pallet slat, stepping with agonizing, silent precision through the darkness behind the unhinged man.