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‘Ana. Look at me.’
After a few seconds, she made eye contact. Her dark blue eyes were clouded, and she looked like she might cry again. He hated it when she cried. Made him feel fucking powerless.
‘We’re leaving,’ John said resolutely.
‘What?’ Mariana said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You wanna bring the kid, we’ll bring him. The four of us. Me, you, Juliette, Jason. I’ll organise new papers for all of us. Passports. Birth certificates. We are not hanging around here until we find ourselves in the firing line.’
‘John–’ Mariana started.
‘Don’t John me,’ he cut her off. ‘I know why you’re packing that gun. You’re going to try and kill Emilio? You know that’s exactly what he’s expecting of you today, right? Jesus Christ, it’s like he’s chumming the waters with blood and you’re swimming up, thinking you’re about to get your teeth into something.’
Mariana looked at the ceiling pointedly.
‘Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.’
She narrowed her gaze on him. ‘I won’t do anything stupid.’
She went to pass him, heading for the door. Without thinking, John’s hand shot out, pulling her back to him. He took her shoulders and turned her so that she was up against the door, squeezing her chin so hard he was probably hurting her.
‘We’re getting out of here,’ he murmured against her lips. ‘I promise you.’
‘I don’t need a man to save me,’ she whispered, her eyes wet.
John kissed her, long and hard, pressing his body against hers until he was practically grinding her into the bedroom door.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because I need you to save me.’
And he did need her to save him from this.
There was a rap of knuckles on the door.
‘We rolling?’ Guillermo hollered.
With great reluctance, John peeled himself from Mariana’s slight form, swiping a thumb across her face to erase the smear of red lipstick he’d just kissed halfway across her cheek.
‘Gimme five,’ John yelled back, finally letting Mariana go. ‘I’ll meet you out there.’
She nodded, straightening her clothes before she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
John felt strangely out of place as he wandered through Mariana’s bedroom – a place where he’d fucked her countless times behind the security a locked door afforded – and into her bathroom. He had an eerie feeling of deja vu that he couldn’t quite place. That sinking feeling again. That inescapable reality.
He went into the bathroom, and by the time he heard Guillermo yelling and bashing his fists against the front door not thirty seconds later, Mariana was long gone.
John burst out of the bathroom, almost bowling Guillermo over. The Mexican’s face was red, his fists white as he clenched them tight, raining down blows on the locked front door.
‘She changed the fucking code again!’ Guillermo said.
John looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath, hoping Guillermo was just clumsy-fingered. ‘Here, let me try,’ he said, shoving him aside and entering the code. Zero-six-six-six-hash.
Nope. Nothing.
More alarmingly, he knew that if they entered the wrong code more than five times, an alarm would be triggered remotely and the security company would call Dornan. Not a great idea to have him turn up with armed guards to find his girlfriend missing and John and Guillermo standing sheepishly in her foyer.
‘I’ll try her birthday,’ Guillermo said, reaching his hand out to hit the keypad next to the door. John caught his hand mid-air. ‘Don’t do that.’
Guillermo looked surprised. ‘Huh?’
