Acquisition Read Online Free Page B

beforehand, I’m driving away before I call the cops. Just so we’re clear.”
    She nodded her understanding and slid out of the cab, cautiously approaching the building as she looked around her. There were two other cars parked nearby, but she didn’t recognize either of them. She half-expected to find a guard posted at the door, but there wasn’t one.
    Abby turned the knob and pushed against the door, wincing when it squeaked slightly. She froze for a moment, holding her breath as she waited to see if she had been discovered. When no one came running, she slipped inside and eased the door shut so it wouldn’t make more noise to alert someone to her presence.
    She didn’t have to figure out which way to go, because the sounds of grunts reached her. She moved across the cracked cement floor cautiously, not wanting to fall, especially in her condition.
    When she made her way down the hallway, she held her breath each time she had to cross a doorway, but found all three rooms empty as she walked past them. The fourth room was where the sounds she could hear all the way at the entrance originated from, and she paused, leaning with her back against the wall as she tried to listen before peering in.
    “I told you to stay away from me and my family. That sure as fuck goes for my girlfriend, Armstrong.”
    “I’m just doing my job,” rasped a voice she recognized, the one from earlier in the afternoon. She shuddered as the sound of flesh striking flesh reverberated from the room.
    “Guess what? Your job is over.”
    Her heart stuttered when she heard a small click, and she didn’t want to believe it, but it sounded like a gun cocking, or perhaps the safety being removed. Deciding she couldn’t live with not knowing, she took a deep breath and peeked around the edge of the doorway, almost gasping at the sight before her.
    The FBI agent was on his knees with two men she didn’t recognize standing beside him on either side, pinning him to the ground by his shoulders. Two more men in dark suits stood behind him, and Luka was directly in front of him with a gun held out in his direction. She clapped a hand over her mouth to hold in her shocked cry when Luka fired the pistol a moment later, and blood sprayed from the agent’s head as he collapsed to the ground.
    She didn’t have to wait around to see if he was dead. There was no way he had survived that bullet to the forehead. It didn’t matter if he was still somehow miraculously alive at that moment, because she was certain he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the warehouse in that state if he’d survived the first shot anyway. Luka would take care of that.
    Luka would kill him.
    Luka had already killed him.
    The thought made her shudder, and tears blurred her eyes. A second later, her foot caught in one of the cracks in the cement floor, sending her flying forward. Fortunately, her hands and forearms absorbed most of the impact. It hurt, but she would prefer the sting in her arms and palms to pain in her abdomen. She didn’t let the discomfort get to her as she scrambled to her feet and kept running.
    She held the sobs in check until she had left the building and returned to the cab, which she was thankful to find still waiting for her. She was certain she hadn’t been gone anywhere near ten minutes, but she’d been afraid the cabdriver would drive off as soon as she disappeared into the building. She was doubly thankful now that he hadn’t done so, since she would have no other way to flee.
    After she’d scrambled into the back and quietly shut the door, he turned partially in his seat to look at her. “You okay, honey?”
    She shook her head. “No. I’m pretty far from okay, actually.”
    “What can I do?”
    “Just drive,” she said in a voice thick with tears.
    The cabdriver complied, and they were soon back on the road and navigating the city. When he asked for her destination, she mumbled, “The bus station,” before returning to silence.
    It was only