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“Ah,Signor?” Giovanni said, poking his gray-haired head in the office doorway. He was the butler of the estate, but the title seemed too small for the myriad responsibilities he undertook on a daily basis.
All three of us turned to look at him.
His lips were pressed tightly together like he was holding back laughter, but his eyes were narrowed with what might have been concern. “My apologies,Signor,”he said, nodding first to my father, then to me. “But thesignorinais… on the roof.”
Chapter Twelve
Heidi
I stared into my captor’s bedroom from the slanted, shingled roof where I stood. This had certainly seemed like a better idea frominsidethe room. Out here, the ground was laughing at me, throwing up a checklist of all the bones I could break: tibia, fibula, tibial plateau, femur, hip.
The window I’d climbed out of was a dormer, set back from the edge of the roof by four or five feet. It gave me a surface to climb out onto—albeit a slanted, rough surface—so I could ease my way to the edge of the roof where I would then be able to hang-drop to the ground. Ten feet down, I’d gauged when I first peered out. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Twelve seemed like a more accurate guess.
“Doable,” I said aloud. Less than seven feet once I was hanging from the roof’s edge.
I eased myself down onto my knees and crawled to the edge, muttering obscenities about beautiful criminals the whole way. It was certainly preferable to focusing on what I was about to do or how, even if I managed to make the drop unscathed, I still had to get away from this place without running into any more men with guns.
A long shot? Absolutely.
I reached the edge of the roof and looked around, scanning the tastefully landscaped grounds and gardens for men with guns.
What the bloodyhell are youdoing,Heidi-girl? It’s what my father called me, and I swear I could hear his voice, whispering inside my head. There was no cold, faint brush of disapproval blowing against my shoulders, though. He couldn’t be completely opposed to my plan.
I’m getting out of here, Daddy, I told him as I maneuvered onto my stomach and stretched out my legs. I hadn’t spoken to him like this in a long time, not since I was in high school. It was comforting to think of him here beside me, to think that he was more than a warm ray of sun or a cool gust of wind.
You’ll be all right, luv,my mother crooned.
It seemed my mind was calling in all the big guns for encouragement today.
I took a deep breath and flexed my arm muscles, testing them. Thanks to morning runs and the occasional weekend afternoon at the gym, I was in reasonable shape, but I didn’t have the muscle of a bodybuilder. I’d only have to support my weight for a moment, though.
My hands shook—which was not at all useful to my task—as I lowered one leg over the roof’s edge. I looked down one last time—which was not at all useful either—then endeavored not to look down again as I grabbed hold of the gutter. It was metal, not plastic, which meant it had a much better chance of holding my weight long enough for me to swing my other leg over and drop down.
I squeezed the gutter as hard as I could and swung my leg over.
The metal bent and bit into my fingers as I swung free, and my shoulders screamed in protest.
I took a deep breath, tried to relax my body for the impact, and let go.
I dropped.
I dropped so fast it took a moment to register that I didn’t hit the ground.
Arms wrapped around me, gripping hard, crushing my ribs.
Then my feet lowered to the ground, slowly, gently, and the vise around my ribs loosened.
“Where the bloody hell did you come from?” I screeched as he let me go and took a step back. My captor, of course. Who else?
“You’re welcome,” he said as the corners of his eyes creased and his lips quivered with silent laughter.
“You expect me to thank you? There’s no way you just happened to be passing by, so if you knew I was going to go out the window, why didn’t you just stop me?”
“And miss the show?” The laughter broke free.
I’d never felt the compulsion to hit another human being before. I’d never considered myself a violent person. But plenty of violent urges were crawling up my spine.
“What exactly was your plan?—to drop, break your ankles, and army crawl your way to freedom?”
