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“You are mine. This”—he gently rubs my pussy—“is mine.”
I don’t understand. I’m sonothis, it’s painful.
“Do you trust me?” he asks, and I don’t.
Not fully. Not right now. But would it be so bad? To go out like this?
No.
Not at all.
“There’sno way we’re getting out of here. Have you lost your mind?” I ask him, completely serious. “How’d you even manage to get in? This place is like Fort Knox.”
He dismisses my comment but takes me by the hand, leading me to the window he crawled in from. His touch is enough to make everything else fade away, and I know we’re playing a dangerous game right now.
We both carefully look out the window and focus down on the ground. He points from one direction to the other.
“I’ve been studying their patterns all day.” Dante keeps his eyes focused on the men below, the guards hired by my father and my future in-laws.
I gulp down my fear as my mind drifts to Santiago.
“There’s two on this wall here, right?” He nods his head, motioning to a man who’s east of us and one who’s west, each walking back and forth. “They walk the perimeter nonstop. They cross paths right in front of your window, and each continues on until they’ve walked the entire wall. Once they reach the end, they turn and walk the same path again. They’ve timed it impeccably and are in perfect sync, always crossing paths right under your window.”
I follow the first guard with my gaze, who walks east from my window. He stops just as Dante said he would, where the wall ends. He turns around, meets the west-side guard under my window, and continues on until that portion of the wall has ended as well.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
“The Amatos and Martínezes have a total of eighteen external guards just waiting for something like this to happen. Each is on a very tight schedule. All I had to do was time it perfectly.” He cocks his head to the side and smirks, and for seconds, my despair and nerves are replaced with the butterflies that always accompany his presence.
“I ran up and climbed the bricks when the two who walked below this window were on opposite ends. The window ledges helped, and the fact that the bricks jut out.” He stops before adding, “They should be below us in five, four, three, two—”
I look down and see the two guards walk past each other and set off in separate directions, leaving the space under my window unguarded.
“I had thirty seconds before they turned around to repeat their pattern. No room for error.”
He sighs and cracks his knuckles, and then he pauses for a couple of beats and points down at the ground outside of the window again as the two pass each other yet again.
“You could have been killed. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Eighteen guards. One of you. Come on, Dante. You scaled a goddamn wall? What were you thinking?” I ask him, borderline scolding him for being such an idiot.
“Hey, I got up here, didn’t I?” he asks. “And I’m getting us out, too. But I’m going to need your help. I can’t get both of us down there and run in the thirty seconds we’ll have to take cover in the tree line.”
He plants a quick kiss on my lips, and I quickly change out of what’s left of my ripped gown and into the pants I arrived at the estate in. I don’t think. I just act. In this moment, I don’t care that Dante and I have a lot of talking to do. I don’t care that I’m making one of the biggest decisions of my life by running.
These thoughts run rapidly through my mind as I strip, but I shove them down.
Because there’s exactly two things I’m sure of right now: Dante is the only person in this world who is going to get me away from The Blood Syndicate, and I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Consequences be damned.
Dante’s eyes don’t leave mine as I finish changing, and I can’t help but let out a laugh, even in a moment like this.
“Calm down, boy.”
His face turns from playful to serious. “Listen, I need you to poke your head out and tell me how many men are out on this floor. I studied the floor plan online last night, but that didn’t help me know how they’d be set up today. And then I need you to be a good girl and follow my lead. Do you understand me?”
I nod, knowing right now is not the time to disobey him. He steps to the side of the room as I unlock the door and poke my head out.
“Ms. Amato?” a guard, one I’ve known for years, one who is a trusted man of my father’s—one who I witnessed beating one of our servants—calls out to me.
I do a quick sweep of the floor—all the doors are shut, and he’s the only one here on the third floor.
