Chapter 13: The Dark Room

Vaughn pulled Astrid flat behind the stage as the first flashlight beam swept the ballroom.

Guests were screaming and running into each other in the black.

"How many guards?" he said.

"Thirty on the walls, from the sound of the safeties. Maybe forty."

"We have two pistols between us."

"I only need one," Astrid said.

She had taken the gun from his belt before he finished the sentence.

A guard came around the end of the stage with his light low.

She hit his wrist with the barrel, and his rifle dropped.

She caught it, turned it and put the butt into his jaw, and he went down without a sound.

She slung the rifle over her shoulder and took the radio off his vest.

"Is he dead?" Vaughn whispered.

"No. He'll wake up with a headache and a better life."

Vaughn almost laughed.

It was a short, cracked sound, and it stopped the moment the second beam found the stage.

"Down!" he said.

The shots went over their heads and chewed the curtain.

Astrid crawled along the stage edge to the sound desk, where a laptop glowed green.

It was Duncan's.

He had plugged it into the house system for the press conference, and he had never unplugged it.

The screen showed a recording bar that was still running.

She understood in one breath.

The earpiece Everard had whispered into had been open to Duncan the whole time, and Duncan had recorded every word.

"Vaughn, cover me," she said.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere. I'm staying right here."

She slid the master fader to the top, found the file and pressed play.

Everard Swinton's voice came out of every speaker in the ballroom.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Mercenary Queen Strikes Back from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.