Page 97 of Hot for Hostage

“Are we under attack?” I asked in disbelief.

This day couldn’t get any stranger.

Vince shifted along the wall, creeping closer to the balcony doors. “No, it looks like… It looks like someone’s setting off fireworks?”

“At this hour?” It was still daylight.

He shrugged and eased back from the door. “It’s summer. Might be some kids messing around.”

I had my head of security on speakerphone by the time the next round of explosions went off. “What’s happening out there?”

“Fireworks on the west side,” Dante answered grimly. “Twenty feet from the property.”

“Who?”

“No sign of the culprits, but my team is on it. The explosives were set off at long range. Remote detonator.”

I frowned at the folded note on my dresser. The timing didn’t sit well. Sadie was hiding somewhere in the compound, andnow there were fireworks. “Has Enzo made any progress on that footage?”

“He’s scrubbing it now.”

“Send him to my office. I want to see it.” I hung up and headed for the door, calling over my shoulder to Vince. “Come with me. We need to find Sadie.”

He snorted. “You’re acting like professionals are after her. It’s just some kids looking for trouble.”

“Things have changed,” I said, but there wasn’t time to get into it now. “Long story short, Zain Ali is Fessy’s brother. He was the one at Sadie’s apartment last night.”

Vince’s jaw dropped before he snapped it shut.

“Shit,” he muttered, voicing my thoughts as he jogged after me. “Well, that’s a curveball.”

“A big one. He’s planning something, and we need to get ahead of it.”

He grunted. “I’ll see if Malcolm’s put that team together.”

When we reached my office, I was surprised to find my father still there. I’d half expected him to be petty enough to leave after I told him not to.

“Davian.” Seb turned from the window, and I shoved back a wave of annoyance at his smirk. “Now that you’ve calmed down, I’ll set up a dinner with Gio and Dani?—”

“Not now.” I moved to stand behind Enzo taking a seat at my computer. He pulled up a screen with four different camera angles and swapped through the feeds. “Any luck?”

He straightened his black-rimmed glasses and tapped a few keys. “I found her exit point.”

“Exit point?” There it was again—the pesky snapping in my chest. “She made it out?”

His fingers froze on the keyboard, and he glanced up at me. “Not too long ago, and Dante’s patching the hole in security now. It won’t happen again.”

I rested both palms on the desk and leaned forward. “Show me.”

He hit play while Seb joined us on Enzo’s other side, and the top two cameras showed different angles of Sadie climbing down the same escape blanket-rope she’d used yesterday.

We watched in tense silence as she dropped to the ground on her ass, though Vince may have stifled a laugh behind me.

Sadie scurried across the yard like a squirrel, with that dead plant of hers in tow. She stayed out in the open—not even bothering to hug the walls or try to stay hidden. Not that it mattered, since my security had somehow missed all this.

The more footage Enzo played, the less I believed what I was seeing. Sadie’s sneaking skills were… questionable, at best. Her hand-eye coordination was even worse. When she found Bear napping by the pool, she ran straight into a patio chair and tripped over it. Soil from her plant went flying, but she straightened the chair before taking off with Bear in a half canter, half limp.

I shouldn’t have found it so damn endearing.

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