Midnight Fire by Lisa Marie Rice

arrived late. My mom had called twenty times. I ended up just switching my cell off. But not my work cell. Hugh and I had spent the day going over possible traitors and it was sad how many people in the Company I wouldn’t put a hand to the fire and swear that they were loyal. At the last minute, I called a cab to pick up me a few blocks from the safe house. I knew they’d be running late at the Burrard anyway. My dad was many things, but punctual wasn’t one of them.”
    “The announcement was slated for 7:30.” That had been in the press briefing.
    “Yeah, but like I said, they were running really late. I got to the podium, hugged my parents and Isabel and the twins and my phone started ringing.”
    “Presumably the one Hugh gave you and not the other one.”
    He dipped his head. “The one Hugh gave me. I felt it vibrate and I knew something was up. I’d left him less than an hour before, why would he be calling when he knew I was at my dad’s rally?”
    Summer could see it. She leaned forward on her elbows. “He’d just found something out. Something that you had to know as soon as possible.”
    “He’d discovered something, that was for sure. I walked out of the auditorium because I couldn’t hear him. There were people shouting and the rally music was playing really loud on speakers. Not even my goddamned ear buds could filter out the noise. We couldn’t hear each other, so he switched off and sent me a text.”
    “You remember what that text was?”
    He speared her with his glare. “You think I could ever forget? He texted
Get out of there.
Run.
Hide.
Now.
And then the phone went dead. But whatever Hugh thought was going to happen, I wasn’t leaving without my family. I was running back to them when I heard shots fired. AK-47s. A lot of them. A firefight, in a crowded auditorium. Hugh had insisted I attend unarmed. I broke land speed records trying to get back to my family.”
    Summer was watching his eyes, brilliant blue, blood-shot whites. “So you saw—” she whispered.
    “Everything.” His jaws clenched. “I saw fucking everything. They doused the lights but there were candles everywhere. I saw. Men in ski masks opening fire on the crowd, working from the back to the front. They took care of security first. Amateurs, I don’t know who hired them. My dad wouldn’t have Secret Service protection until he declared so some bozo on his staff hired some clowns. They went down immediately. The attackers just mowed them down. They were the first to go. The rest—it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Ridiculously easy. The fuckers met with no resistance at all.”
    She held her breath. She could almost see the scene, smell the blood.
    “People were screaming. The assaulters were efficient. In the time it took me to run into the auditorium, their work was almost done. I was running flat out when they got to the podium.”
    The podium. Where his family was. Not only his close family but aunts, uncles, cousins. God.
    Jack’s head hung down. She saw the stubble on the top of his head, the sharp blade of nose and jutting cheekbones as he stared at the tabletop.
    “In a few minutes it was over. I couldn’t see Isabel. I saw my father and mother turn to shield my brothers, arms outstretched. But it was useless. They fell in a heap. A bloody mass of flesh and bones exploding. Dead in an instant.”
    He stared at his hands, still and calm, though a vein beat fast in his temple.
    He was silent so long she finally spoke. “And then?”
    “And then the whole place blew up. I found out later charges had been placed around the ballroom. No one knows how that could have happened.”
    Summer knew. “Hector Blake was a silent partner in the Burrard. He owned a controlling share. Personnel later testified that there was a lot of unscheduled maintenance work the week before.”
    Jack’s head lifted. “Is that true?”
    She nodded somberly. Something else to lay at Blake’s door. “It was hushed up. One of