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I suck in a breath so deep my chest burns.
It feels like I've been holding my breath ever since Griffin confronted me. I look between my ankle and the purse in my lap. Should I take off the heels, or call Alexander first? By now, he and Wesley should already be looking for me.
I'll call him first.
I'm unhooking my clutch to find my phone when I hear the tell-tale crunching of dress shoes on stone. My whole body goes tense.
Did Griffin follow me down here to make sure I actually left?
The steps are getting closer.
My heart is in my throat, and I'm scrambling with my phone to make the call. Or send a text, but my fucking Face ID won't pick up my face because the lights are so dim down here. It fails twice before it gives me the option to enter my passcode instead, wasting valuable seconds as the footfalls echo in the still night.
With trembling fingers, I enter the passcode.
Griffin's here now. The sound is right next to me, behind the wall of plants to my left. My hands just can't seem to move fast enough as I look for Alexander’s name.
The figure steps around the bushes.
But it isn't Griffin.
It's Laurent.
I freeze.
For a moment, I wonder if I got hit harder than I thought.
Laurent Martin? It can't be.
But it is.
The horn-rimmed glasses. The cropped dark hair speckled with gray. The aristocratic air as he strides toward me like we're old friends. A tailored tuxedo the color of burnt oranges hangs from his wiry frame. He looks the same as he did that day on his private jet when he took me from that hospital in France to send me to my death.
"Alize, so wonderful to run into you here," he says, shoving a hand into his pocket. "I was worried I wouldn't get the chance to speak to you tonight."
Speak?
This man doesn't want to speak to me.
He has my phone number. He could have called at any time.
Heat snakes up the back of my neck as he approaches. Dread coils in the pit of my stomach again. No, Laurent doesn't want a conversation with me.
He wants me dead.
"Don't come any closer!" I shout. My voice sounds panicked even to my own ears. I don't know what to think.
Laurent ignores me, crossing the space between us.
I press the button to dial Alexander's number, but it doesn't go through.
No cell service.
Fuck.
I slam my phone back into my clutch and get to my feet. All my survival instincts are screaming at me to book it. I don't have my gun, and I'm injured. The odds aren't in my favor. I don't know what Laurent is doing here, how he even found me in this garden of all places.
But all of that is secondary to getting away from him.
