Page 72 of Salvatore

This was his only plan.

Shit.

“I’ll figure something else out.” My voice breaks. “I can handle staying here if I have to. I grew up in this environment. What I can’t live through is a fall from two hundred feet.” The thought is enough to knock the air from my lungs.

I’ll find another way… in the next twenty-four hours… before my bruises are completely healed… when I’ve been stumped on an exit strategy for more than two weeks.

Shit.I rake a hand through my hair, the insurgence of panic leaving me a jittery mess.

“I’m not leaving without you,” he growls.

“Well, you can’t stay.” I push at his chest. “They come and check on me all the time. You’re going to get me killed.”

“Calm down,” he warns.

“I will as soon as you leave.” I shove him, not only fighting him but the overwhelming need to melt down. “Get out.”

“I said calm the fuck down, Ivy. Let me think.” He grabs my wrists and steps into me, thigh to thigh, chest to chest.

It’s all I can do not to hyperventilate. Not to collapse into him.

“How many men are in the apartment?” he demands.

I shake my head. It’s useless. He can’t walk me out of here.

“How many?” he growls.

“I don’t know. Two. Maybe three. There’s always at least one, but when they have the music up loud, it’s usually because there are more of them out there drinking.” I twist my wrists from his grip. “Please just go.”

“I’ll leave when I’m good and fucking ready.”

It hurts—the hope that crashes into despair. The thought of never seeing Liv again after we parted on bad terms, yet she still had my back. There’s so much more too. Things I haven’t wanted to think about. Things I refuse to acknowledge.

“I’m going to speak to my brothers. We’ll figure out a plan.”

I stand immobile, pessimism weighing me down. “You need to leave the building.”

Just because I diffused the cameras in the bedroom doesn’t mean there aren’t any in the main hall or elevators. Any minute now Gabriel could find out what’s going on. Salvatore and his brothers would be ambushed.

“I will.” He stalks from the bathroom. “Once you’re with me.”

I follow like a lost puppy.

He snatches his baseball cap from the bed and puts it on, then raises his bandana to rest against the tops of his cheeks as he makes for the balcony. “Try to get some rest while I’m gone. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“Sure thing. I’ll just bust out a few Zs while getting railed by adrenaline. No problem. Anything else?”

He pauses at the glass door. “Yeah. You can come up with some creative ways to thank me once you’re free.”

My heart skips a beat, my thoughts sliding straight into X-rated territory.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about the day I opened my legs to a fully-grown career criminal with more swagger thansense. Should I have spent that reflection regretting the ovary-fluttering idiocy? Without a doubt.

Have I, though? Sadly not even a little bit.

I take a seat on the bed. “I hope a home-cooked meal will suffice.”

He glances at me over his shoulder, the moonlight bathing him in a sinister glow that shouldn’t make him all the more irresistible. “Just as long as you’re part of the menu.”

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