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O nce inside, Matias stripped off his clothing.

My cheeks flushed as I caught sight of his exposed, rippled chest. I turned around, facing away from him as he finished undressing, but I caught sight of Calista, arms crossed, as she drank him in with hungry eyes.

I’m not gonna lie, I felt like shoulder-checking her.

I might not have been in love with Matias, but he was sort of, kind of my ex, and the thought that she was trying to claw her way back to Wes, only to now be slobbering over Matias, was more than just a little provoking.

But I kept my mouth shut and focused on the task at hand.

“We don’t have much time, Wes,” Harper warned.

“I know.”

After another minute, Matias had geared himself back up, wearing the guard’s uniform and tactical belt. “Done,” he said.

“Let’s go. Stairway’s to the left.” Wes used the guard’s keycard to unlock a thick metal door with a red image of stairs on it. The lock clicked, and he opened the door, checked the hallway, and then motioned for us to follow him.

One by one, we filed into the passageway, and immediately began our climb up, stunners pointed and at attention.

We hustled, deathly aware that we were on borrowed time, and at any moment, someone was going to realize that the guard we left gagged and tied up was missing.

It only took us a minute to reach the fifth floor, where another metal door with a red number five painted on it waited for us.

Wes lifted his tab and thumbed it, looking at the schematics of the building. “Cellblock C should be to the left. It looks like there’s a guard’s station we have to get by first.”

“Cameras?” Matias asked.

“Definitely,” Harper said.

Wes thumbed his tab again. “It looks like there’s a surveillance room to the right.”

“We should split up,” Blondie said. I frowned and looked at her.

She caught my gaze and lifted one sculpted brow ever so slightly before shifting her attention back to Wes.

“You three can take out the surveillance,” she said as she pointed to all three guys, “while the princess and I wrangle the guard at the security checkpoint.”

“No, we’re sticking together,” Wes snapped. “Beyond this door should be an empty hallway. We’re going to take out the surveillance and then we’ll deal with the security.”

“We’re going to run out of time—”

“We do it,” he uttered forcibly, emphasizing each word, “together.”

Calista huffed, but she said nothing more.

We all listened as Wes gave us the details of his plan.

After another minute, Wes swiped the keycard.

The lock clicked, and he pushed open the door.

After checking the hallway, he motioned us forward.

In a single file line, we got low and hustled down the dimly lit hall.

After huffing it several yards, Wes held his hand up for us to stop and pointed to a closed door with a rectangular window in it.

We saw several men talking, but we couldn’t get an exact count.

Harper and I moved to place ourselves flush against the wall on the left side of the door while Calista and Wes did the same on the right.

Matias, on the other hand, rolled his shoulders back, strolled right up to the door, and tried the keycard in the key fob.

The device blinked yellow twice and then blinked red.

Crap.

Matias looked at Wes, shrugging his shoulders in a what now fashion. Wes lifted his spare hand and made a knock-knock motion.

“What?” Matias mouthed, looking as though he wanted to punch Wes in the face.

Wes glared back at him, pointed at the door, and then made another knock-knock motion. I swear, if it weren’t because I was desperate for this whole thing to be over, I’d burst out laughing right then and there. It was just too ridiculous.

Matias rolled his eyes, let out a deep breath, and then knocked on the door. Commotion came from the inside, and after a few seconds, the door opened.

“What do you need?” a man said.

“Oh, nothing much,” Matias said, shrugging his shoulders. “Just this .” Matias shot out his leg, landing a hard kick to the guy’s sternum and sending the guard flying backward into the room.

Wes stood up, lifting his arm, holding a stun bomb, and in one fluid motion, he pulled out the pin and threw the bomb into the surveillance room.

Matias reached forward, snagged the handle of the door, and slammed it closed as a deep, bassy boom—barely audible—came from inside.

We remained frozen for several seconds before Matias opened the door, glanced inside, and then motioned us to follow.

We poured in and closed the door behind us.

Five men lay on the ground. Harper checked one man’s pulse and confirmed, “He’s alive.”

“Computers are down,” Blondie said as she tapped several keyboards. I noticed all the monitors were black.

“Gotta love a stun bomb,” Matias said. “Knocks the shit out of everything every time.”

“Yeah, except they work like shit in open spaces,” Blondie countered. “I much prefer a real grenade. TNT’s way more reliable than electricity.”

“Tie ’em up,” Wes ordered. “We’ve got to get going.”

Each one of us pulled out a roll of duct tape and began wrapping wrists and ankles, as well as placing a patch over their mouths.

Every guard we tied up was one less that could sound the alarm before we had a chance to get out of this place.

Wes walked around and collected all of their keycards and then destroyed each guard’s mini-tab.

“Does anyone think that this is too easy?” Harper asked as he spun a roll of tape around a guard’s ankle for the third time.

“Shut up, Harper!” Blondie snapped.

“I’m just saying…”

“I don’t think our boat nearly flipping, and then your ass almost falling 250 feet, was easy,” she countered.

Jim bit off the tape, and then stretched out another six inches of it. “Yeah, but that’s been the hardest part so far. We were all preparing ourselves for this crazy ass death mission, and frankly…it’s been pretty okay .” He bit off the rectangular piece and placed it over the guard’s mouth.

“ Christ , Harper,” Matias muttered. “Are you trying to fuck us all over?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Enough!” Wes bit out. “Stop your yapping and get your asses in gear. Let’s move it!”

We quickly finished up and filed out of the surveillance office, moving on to our next obstacle.

But I couldn’t help but mull over Jim’s words.

He was right. This was too easy. As Raúl’s daughter, I knew the Bellfire Tower was rumored to be an awful place.

A place no one ever escaped. But if it truly was this horrible, formidable prison, then why was I only moments away from finally having my brother back?

It didn’t make any sense.

Perhaps the formidability of the tower was just another one of Raúl’s lies? Then again, perhaps the tower was only toying with us, letting us think we were superior to her deadly bites. Perhaps she was just biding her time before baring down her teeth and eating us alive.