Page 9 of Risky Obsession

But I’m trapped.

No, Hughes must have escaped. Fear raced up my spine as I clutched my throbbing hand to my chest, and forcing my legs to move, I hurried in the opposite direction.

My mind screamed at me to get the fuck out of there.

Pain blazed up my leg. Nausea burned in my stomach.

I clenched my jaw and kept moving.I am not dying here.

Up ahead, a rectangular bar on the floor in the dim distance looked out of place. Shining my light forward, I sprinted toward it.

A gold bar. My breath hitched.

A lion emblem was embossed on the smooth surface.

“Yes.”

This was absolute proof that Hughes was connected to Chui.

Above the gold, a square hatch cover was in the wall, like a laundry chute door. I yanked it open and peered into the black tunnel.

This must be how he escaped.

I snatched the gold from the floor. It may be the only physical proof left if he’d set the detonation to blow up his entire house.

I slid feet-first into the dark, narrow passage and a scream tore from my throat and echoed back to me as the cold metal walls scraped my elbows.

The chute spat me out at the end, and I flew through the air and crashed shoulder-first onto a large plexiglass platform.

Wind whipped my hair around, and a thumping beat roared in my ears.

I rolled over. “Son of a bitch!”

A helicopter hovered right over me like a vulture waiting to pick at my remains. In the cockpit was Hughes. His face, twisted with a malicious grin, stared down at me from behind the chopper’s controls.

I pulled my gun from my pocket and fired.

The chopper banked away.

“No!” I dragged my aching body upright and fired my last two bullets at the tail end of the chopper.

The helicopter dipped wildly, then it gained air as it flew away over the ocean.

“Fuck!” I screamed at the diminishing chopper.

My entire body throbbed as I scooped my hair from my face, scanning my surroundings.

I stood on a glass helicopter pad that only a rich bastard could afford. It was attached to the rocks by giant metal girders. High above me loomed the gray walls of Grant’s mansion and through the glass at my feet, ocean waves crashed forty feet below.

A deafening boom echoed through the air, followed by three more.

A firestorm consumed the entire hill as the multi-million-dollar mansion exploded.

The glass below my feet shattered to pieces.

Screaming, I fell through the floor.

CHAPTER 4