Chapter 828
“The rules are simple,” Bianca said, leaning over the railing. “There is a key hidden somewhere in this hotel. The person who finds it gets to walk out the front door. Everyone else?”
She smiled, revealing teeth that looked too white, too sharp.
“Well, my pets are hungry.”
The side doors—the ones used for service—burst open simultaneously.
They poured out like a nightmare spilling into reality: men wearing rubber wolf masks, their chests bare and slick with oil or sweat, wielding baseball bats, machetes, and chains.
The scream that tore through the room was primal. It was the sound of a hundred people realizing they were no longer guests. They were prey.
Chaos erupted.
𝘋i𝘀сov𝘦𝘳 𝗻ew 𝗌to𝗋𝗂𝖾𝘴 оո 𝗴𝖺l𝘯о𝘷𝗲lѕ.𝖼𝗈𝗺
People trampled each other in a desperate bid to get away from the wolves. Tables overturned, champagne towers shattered, sending glass and liquid spraying across the floor.
I kicked off my heels, the expensive Louboutins skittering across the polished floor. Being tall was an advantage; being fast was survival. I sprinted toward the stage where Victoria stood frozen, staring at a man in a wolf mask who was bringing a bat down on the head of a banker.
I grabbed Victoria’s wrist and yanked her hard.
“Move!”
The shock broke her paralysis.
I dragged her toward the kitchen swing doors. It was the only exit the wolves hadn’t blocked yet.
“Don’t look back!” I ordered, weaving through the stampede.
A wolf stepped into our path. He was huge, the rubber mask grinning grotesquely. He swung a rusted pipe at my head.
Adrenaline slowed the world down. I didn’t think; I reacted. Years of watching Alistair, of surviving Liam’s mind games, had taught me one thing: hesitation is death.
I dropped to my knees, sliding on the smooth floor. The pipe whooshed over my head, missing by inches. As I slid past him, I grabbed a heavy crystal decanter from a fallen waiter’s cart.
He turned, raising the pipe again.
I smashed the decanter into his face. Crystal shattered, alcohol and glass spraying into the eyeholes of his mask.
He screamed, clutching his face, and stumbled back.
“Go!” I shoved Victoria forward.
We burst through the double doors into the industrial kitchen. It was empty of staff—they must have been tipped off or fled first. Pots of sauce still bubbled on the stoves; a half-chopped onion sat on a cutting board.
But the back exit—the delivery bay door—was shut.
I ran to it and slammed my shoulder against the push bar.
Locked. Chains rattled on the other side.
“We’re trapped,” Victoria sobbed, backing up against a stainless-steel counter. “We’re going to die here.”
“No,” I said, my chest heaving. “We are not dying in a kitchen.”
I scanned the room. My eyes landed on the knife magnet on the wall. I grabbed two boning knives—six inches of high-carbon steel, razor-sharp.
I shoved one into Victoria’s trembling hand.
“Take it,” I commanded.
“I can’t use this!” she cried, shaking her head. “I’ve never… I can’t hurt anyone!”
I grabbed her face, forcing her to look at me.
“Listen to me, Victoria. That thing out there isn’t a person. It’s a predator. If it comes through those doors, you swing this. You aim for the eyes or the throat. Do you understand?”
“I want my dad,” she whispered, breaking down.
“Your dad isn’t here,” I said, my voice hard as iron. “I am. And I need you to fight.”
From the ballroom, the screams were getting louder. Then came a heavy thud against the kitchen doors.
They were coming.
I turned to face the doors, gripping my knife, the silver tassels of my dress shivering.
Game on, Bianca.