If only it was that easy.
Cam shook his head. “She’s accused of a high-profile murder and was already on the run. There’s no way any judge will grant her bail. We have to bust her out.”
“Are you completely insane?” Lee pushed back from the table, his mouth set in a grim line.
“I totally understand if you want to back out now.” Drea’s life hung in the balance and he’d do anything to save her, but he couldn’t ask anyone else to risk their future for them.
“Fuck that,” Ryder snapped. “I’m in.”
Sylvie and Roscoe nodded their agreement.
Lee opened his mouth and then slammed it shut like he was sucking lemons. The silence hung in the room unanswered until the other man’s face relaxed. “So do you have a plan?”
“Hell yes.” For once, he did. Cam brought up the maps app on the laptop. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”
…
Hours later, Drea’s jailhouse anxiety had mellowed, thanks in no small part to knowing Cam was alive. Her heart slowing to the steady beat of the other women’s snores as they slept with the back of their heads resting against the cement wall. The drunk girl, Caitlyn, had slowed her monologue as she’d sobered up. Now she just sat next to Drea with her eyes half shut.
“I think everyone’s asleep,” she mumbled, her lips barely moving.
“Looks like it,” Drea said, her own eyelids drooping lower.
“By the way.” Caitlyn slid closer, hung an arm around Drea’s shoulders, and pressed something sharp into her rib. “Tommy says goodbye.”
Shock froze her to the spot, but the sharp pain of the blade piercing her skin revived her. She squirmed in her seat, tried to get away—
“Oh no, honey.” Caitlin clamped down on Drea’s shoulders, and her nails dug into her flesh. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“That’s what you think.” Drea jammed her elbow into the other girl’s side and sprang up from the bench.
She spun around fast, tried to stay aware of the other women in the cell at the same time as she kept her focus on Caitlyn.
“You’re going down anyway, honey.” The other woman got up slow from her spot on the bench. The same place where she’d sat for the past three hours with Drea. “It might as well be me who gets the twenty grand for doing ya.”
Drea slid her gaze along the women waking up around them. Would any of them help? From their blank stares, she guessed not.
She shuffle-stepped out of Caitlyn’s reach, wishing like hell she’d taken Ryder up on her offers to teach Drea some fighting moves. She snuck a quick glance up at the security camera.
Come on. Someone look at the camera and get in here!
“Don’t go looking for help.” Caitlyn’s too-sweet tone mocked Drea’s fear. “No one will get here in time.”
“But there are witnesses.” Drea kept moving as she watched the small blade sticking out from Caitlyn’s cocktail ring.
“Do you really think they give a fuck?” The other woman laughed. “If I don’t get you, one of them will for the cash and the get out of jail free card Diamond Tommy is offering.”
Shouts echoed in the cell. Not for them to stop, but encouraging Caitlyn to “gut the bitch.”
Caitlyn went right. Drea dodged left. Where were the cops? There was no way they couldn’t hear the yelling.
She backed up, and someone in the crowd circled around them, shoved her back into the center.
Blood trickled down her abdomen from Caitlyn’s earlier slash, but the throbbing pain wasn’t her biggest worry right now. If she didn’t do something, she was going to die. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
She rushed Caitlyn, grabbed the other woman’s arm. They wrested for control of the ring. Drea slammed Caitlyn’s hand against the floor and banged it against the cement as hard as she could until the ring slipped from Caitlyn’s fingers.
A loud buzz sounded, and—finally—cops rushed in.