Page 11 of The Devil Can Be Kind

If I was wholly confident on my family’s ability to pay the ransom, then I would have barely considered trying to escape. But the truth was… I wasn’t counting on it. Onthem. What if Don La Torre wanted something my family couldn’t give them? What if they wanted my father dead as part of the exchange? They were things my family were never going to deliver on and whether I liked it or not, I wasn’t worththatto my family.

I was just a Don’s daughter. I wasn’t even an heir.

I was going to have to find another way to save myself... and the window had looked like my best option up until five minutes ago.

I threw myself back across the expanse of bed.

I need a new plan.

By eight o’clockthat evening I found one.

I had spent hours listening to the movements of the house and keeping track of how busy the halls of the mansion were. It wasn’t the best reconnaissance mission I had ever launched, but it was better than being totally blindsided. No one would be expecting me to run on the first night anyway… It was the best shot I had.

When dinner was brought to my room shortly after eight, I wolfed it down to build up strength. I didn’t know what I would do if I did make it out of wherever-the-hell-I-was, but I sure as shit didn’t have any money on me to buy food for a while if I did.

At about ten, Adonis—Jesse, knocked on my door to say he was turning in for the night and said if I needed anything he was in the room across the hall. I was going to have to be extra quiet while leaving, given how close his door was to mine when I sneakily took in its proximity.Fantastic.

By eleven, I had found a travel bag in the dressing room and loaded it with a few water bottles, my medicine that I—albeit unnervingly—found in one of the drawers, and two Chanel handbags.

What? He said they were mine,I reasoned.

With my essentials packed, I threw on some new leggings, an oversized top, and a jacket before sitting on my bed and waiting for the clock to hit twelve.

The moment it did, I eased the bedroom door open and listened for any signs of movement from either Jesse’s room or further down the hall.

After waiting a few minutes and hearing nothing but ominous silence, I tiptoed down the passageway and descended the steps.

Deciding that the front door was probably too obvious an option, I edged through the halls until I came to the furthest room in the house. I pushed open one of the windowpanes and all but squealed with excitement as it opened fully. I threw myself through it and ended up head-first in a pile of leaves and sticks.

“Ow! A fucking bush?”

I tried to make as little noise as possible while disentangling myself from the spindly branches, swallowing back a few yelps in the process. Eventually, I landed on the grass on the other side.

After finding my feet, I headed across the patio and ran across the grass with no idea where the hell I was heading. My initial excitement at escaping the house was short lived when after a few short minutes of running I was greeted by an imposing eight-foot-tall brick wall.

Bollocks.

There was definitely no way I was getting overthatmonstrosity, so I followed it around hoping it would finally lead to a gate or entry point of some kind. After walking a while andseeing nothing, I came across a break in the brickwork. It was a solid double gate, positioned at the end of a tarmacked road leading away from the house.

Knowing I needed to move quick to avoid detection, I felt for any ridges I could get a leg over. To my dismay, the wood was totally smooth.

With climbing over it out of the picture, I dropped to the floor to see if I could squeeze myself under—I fit, but just barely. It was going to be tight, but not impossible.

I tossed the duffle bag over the top of the gate and edged my way under, scraping myself along the tarmac and stones. I wiggled myself free on the other side and stood up, brushing away all the dirt as I turned to face the road.

“Good evening.”

“Fuck!” I screeched, jumping out of my skin.

Jesse was leaning causally against the front of an all-black armored Mercedes G-Wagon, parked up not five feet from the gate.

The engine wasn’t even running—like he had been there for a while.

“You do realize that the gate was unlocked, right?” He laughed, clearly enjoying himself.

“Yeah right.” I sighed and picked up my bag up from the floor.

My escape plan was foiled. Bitter disappointment weighed on my shoulders.

---