Page 174 of Mile High Ruin

Get away.

I don’t know who’s attacking the estate.

I don’t know why Camille had a bloody knife.

I don’t know whether Vadim shot her because she was dangerous, because she betrayed him, or because of something even worse that I have not yet begun to understand.

All I know is that I can’t stay where I am.

“Sloane!” Vadim’s voice cuts through everything.

I look toward him. He’s moving in my direction, gun still in his hand, but two men cross between us at the same time and one of them fires toward the eastern wall, forcing Vadim to turn.

That’s enough.

I run toward the gate.

The decision isn’t rational. I don’t have a plan for what happens if I get beyond the compound, no idea where I will go barefoot in the middle of the night or how far the nearest road is, but the gate is the only thing in front of me that looks like an exit, and right now that’s enough.

I sprint across the grass. My shoes are wrong for it, the thin heels sinking into the damp earth and twisting beneath me every few steps, and after nearly falling for the second time I stop long enough to kick them off.

The gravel bites immediately into the soles of my feet, but I barely feel it.

Behind me, someone shouts my name again. I don’t turn around.

The garden blurs as I run past the line of hedges, past a low stone wall, past the lamps throwing long shadows across the ground. My lungs burn, my heart pounding so hard that every beat seems to strike against my throat.

The gate comes into view, the darker road beyond. For the first time since I started running, hope cuts through the panic. I’m close enough that I start thinking I might actually make it.

Then someone catches me from behind.

An arm locks around my waist with brutal force. I scream, but a hand clamp over my mouth before the sound can fully escape, pressing hard enough against my lips that the rest of it turns into a muffled cry.

I fight immediately. My elbow drives backward. My heel catches somebody’s shin.

The grip around me tightens, and a man’s mouth comes close to my ear.

“Stop.”

I twist harder.

He drags me away from the path and toward the darkness behind the hedge, using my own momentum against me. I try to bite the hand covering my mouth, but his fingers press harder across my face.

“Quiet,” he whispers, breath hot against my ear. “Unless you want him to hear you.”

28

VADIM

One minute she’s there, and the next she’s gone.

I see Sloane beside Camille when the shooting starts, pale and frozen, blood across the front of her dress and one hand still lifted as though she has not understood yet that the woman in front of her is already dead.

Then the garden erupts.

Men are shouting from the eastern side of the grounds, somebody fires from beyond the hedge, and two of my security team move between us at the same time. I turn because another round hits the stone near the terrace and Anton is yelling that someone has breached the side perimeter.

It can’t be more than a few seconds.