Page 108 of Savage Seduction

“Jacob took it.”

“Darn it. Are you sure that we can’t get out of the house without the alarms going off?”

She nodded. Then gasped. “My bedroom window was open! We can go through that.”

I hugged her. Kissed her cheek. “Oh, you little genius. You absolute genius. You’ve saved us.”

I checked the creep to make sure he was out cold.

Then, hand in hand, we crept up the basement stairs.

Once on the ground floor landing, we paused to listen. The rest of the men were still down in the other basement. We could hear the distant sounds of their voices.

We would have to run past their basement door to get to the stairs. Chiara shook her head, looking too terrified to do it. But having failed to open the garage door earlier, I already knew there was no other way out.

“We’ll do it quick,” I whispered. “Let’s run.”

Holding her hand firmly, I gave her no time to be scared. We ran, racing past their door on swift, bare feet. My heart leapt as we came to the stairs.

Then Chiara gasped. She wrenched me sideways, away from the stairs, into the corridor that led to the kitchen, her hand clamping over my mouth.

Just in time. A chilling sound reached my ears. Jacob had come out of the vault-basement door.

“Leave them up here,” he called down to the men below. “We’ll do a second leg into the garage.”

The distinct footsteps of the other men trudged up the stairs, coming slowly, as if carrying heavy bags. The bullion, I realised. They must have already broken into the safe.

They grunted, dropping their heavy bags with muffled thuds onto the marble tiles.

“Fuck, that’s heavy,” one swore.

“Not as heavy as another damn twenty years working security,” another said. They both chuckled.

We waited just out of sight around the corner. Listening to them trudge down the stairs for a second trip, but as they went down, we heard another come up.

With every moment that ticked by, I worried the creep in the other basement might wake up and raise the alarm.

I mouthed to Chiara, “When all four of them are down, we’ll make a run for it? Okay?”

She shook her head. “We can lock them down there!” she mouthed excitedly.

But they kept coming, one by one. Then a pair of them stayed at the top, panting.

“Where the fuck is Shaw?I’m not doing all this heavy lifting for him.”

Chiara looked at me in panic. They had to be talking about the creep.

“You go tell the trigger-happy bastard to cut his fun short if you want,” the other said. “But leave me out of it.”

The first cursed.

The second chuckled. “Chill. Soon you’ll be relaxing on a Thai beach with that hot girlfriend of yours. No more wailing babies and nagging ball and chain.”

Laughing, they trudged downstairs again.

I felt exposed, only the wall-corner keeping us out of their sight. We were so close to freedom. So close.

“How much gold is there?” I asked Chiara.

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