I raised my brows and mouthed, “What?”
He turned the notebook so I could see. The damn fool had written down all his passwords.
The sounds from downstairs grew louder. Knowing we had little time, Lance grabbed all the papers from the safe and shoved them into his backpack.
As we reached the window we’d used to enter, one of the drunk men, maybe Clark, shouted, “Hey, did you hear something?”
We froze.
“Hear what?” a second man asked.
“I don’t know. Some kind of creaking noise?”
“This old house makes sounds all the time.”
“No, it sounded like footsteps.”
“Creaky footsteps?” The other sounded annoyed.
“Yeah, or… I don’t know.”
“Are you saying you think someone is in the house?”
Please say no. “Maybe.”
“Shit. Let’s get ’em.”
I used my flashlight to signal to Dax so he would know trouble might be coming, and I hoped to God he would tell Corbin because I didn’t have time to send off a text.
We heard the two men fumbling around as Lance opened the window, not bothering to be quiet.
Lance motioned for me to go first. I wanted to argue, but there wasn’t time. He jumped through after me just as I heard someone shout, “There they are.”
Heavy footsteps clomped across the room, but we didn’t wait to identify the pursuers; we just ran.
I didn’t see Dax, but I felt sure he’d taken cover. The crack of a gun had me grabbing Lance’s arm and pulling him into the alley. I hoped to hell Corbin had gotten out of there. We told him to leave if things went south and we’d contact him about where to pick us up, but who knows if he’d actually listened. I never should’ve brought him.
When we reached the street, I was glad to see Corbin and the SUV were gone. Hopefully he had more sense than to drive straight home in case he was followed.
Lance and I darted in and out of alleys, snuck through a brothel, and ended up on Bourbon Street where we easily melted into the crowd waiting to get into one of the city’s most notorious strip clubs. I grabbed a drink from a man who was so drunk he just stared at his empty hand. I pulled sunglasses from my pocket and put them on. Lance stood behind me, and I was thankful he didn’t have Tony with him, not that I really thought a couple of drunk Landrys were going to find us in the Saturday-night crowd.
After several minutes had passed with no sign of pursuit, Lance and I checked in with Dax and Corbin.
My youngest brother was a few blocks away. He’d pulled into a hotel parking garage. Dax had gone the opposite direction from us and lured the pursuers into an alley where they’d been confused about how they lost him, not seeming to understand how easily he’d been able to climb over a wall and drop down into some unsuspecting tourists’ courtyard. He’d apologized and raced off before the men and women could even comprehend what had happened.
We agreed that Lance would contact Blackjack to see what we could learn with the passwords we’d acquired. I told the others I’d walk home. Lance and Dax went to meet Corbin, but I was anxious to get back to Henri after forcing myself to stay away from him all day.
I needed to stop being afraid and enjoy the time we had. When someone saw as much death and destruction as I had, he learned to indulge himself when and where he could. That was exactly what I intended to do. I had a hell of a lot of ideas for how Henri and I could spend the rest of the night. I was still hopped up on adrenaline from our escape, and I needed to let some of that energy out, which meant I could either fight someone or fuck Henri into the mattress. We’d all be better off with me choosing the latter.
I remembered how I’d contemplated pushing right into Henri’s body as he slept, waking him up with the delicious stretch. I hoped he was asleep now because that was exactly what I wanted to do.
I had to force myself to walk slowly, but finally, I reached home. When I stepped inside, the house was quiet. That didn’t necessarily mean Henri was in bed, but he better be. If not, I was going to put him there as fast as I could. I didn’t want to wait.
I started up the stairs and immediately had the sense something was wrong.
When I reached the landing and saw my office door standing open, hot anger rushed through me. I reached the doorway as Henri was closing my laptop and scrambling away from the desk.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“I… I needed a laptop. I needed to look something up, but I couldn’t get in because it’s locked, and I just…”