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He took a few seconds to listen for his father’s men, didn’t hear anything, and bent to his pack to remove his climbing equipment. He anchored the rope and moved toward the window frame. The canal was a dark glimmer below, the men invisible.
“Dropping the rope,” he whispered.
“Copy that,” Max said in his ear.
Roman dropped the rope through the window, then moved toward the frame to begin the climb to the next floor of the building. He didn’t know where Ruby was being held, how close she was to the top floors of the building. They would work from the top down, clearing every floor until they found her.
But he was close. He could feel her waiting for him.
I’m coming for you, Ruby. I’m coming.
5
Ruby
She shivered and drew her blankets more tightly around her shoulders, tucking her chin into them and letting her breath warm her face. Was it her imagination or was it colder than it had been the night before? Was that even possible? Sometimes she thought she couldn’t get any colder without dying of hypothermia.
Nights were the worst. She had no idea where she was being held or what the outside of the building looked like, but the temperature rose midway through each day, the heat lingering until an hour or so after the sun went down. Then she’d watch darkness descend over her room, her body filled with dread as she braced for the coming cold.
Somewhere beyond the room, the laughter of the men grew louder.
Another reason to fear the night.
They were louder, more boisterous at night. Once, she’d been woken out of a dead sleep by one of the men entering her room. She could hear the others, laughing and cursing, could see the faintest shaft of light behind the big man standing in the doorway.
She’d blinked in confusion, her body flooding with adrenaline in the face of this new development.
No one ever visited her room in the middle of the night.
She’d recognized the man as the one she called Snake Eyes, a tall man with a cold dead gaze.
She’d scooted back against the wall, her breath coming fast as he’d stepped into the room, walking slowly toward her bed, his eyes glittering in the dark.
He was at the end of her mattress, a long quiet moment passing between them when she knew he was going to lunge for her on the bed, when every instinct in her body told her to run before her brain reminded her about the chain shackling her to the metal bolt in the wall.
And then, Meat Face had appeared in the doorway behind him and barked something in Russian.
Snake Eyes didn’t take his eyes off Ruby when he replied in accented English. “Just looking for a little fun.”
“You heard the boss,” Meat Face said. “No fun. Not yet.”
Snake Eyes had cursed, his gaze lingering on Ruby before he turned reluctantly away.
The other man waited for him to step from the room, then looked back in at Ruby. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said, her voice a croak.
He sighed. Frustration? Sympathy?
She didn’t know.
“I’m sorry.” He almost sounded like he meant it. “It’s cold. Tomorrow, I’ll bring you another blanket.”
The door had closed behind him.
She hadn’t slept well since. She had the sense her time was running out, an instinctual clock ticking closer to the sound of an alarm.
They couldn’t keep her here forever and she wasn’t stupid enough to think they planned to let her go, not after she’d seen their faces.
