"Alright," I answered, opening the door. "Go ahead," I added, moving toward the front door, going around the house, waiting.
I didn't have to wait long.
It would have been dumb for her not to try, after all. What prisoner didn't try at least once to escape?
The door closed, the water went on, and the window jacked open.
I slipped back around the corner of the house as she carefully popped out the screen, then wedged her body out, pausing, then throwing her weight forward.
Clearly, the woman had never snuck out of the house as a teenager.
Because if I hadn't stepped out and grabbed her, she'd have fallen on her head.
A gasp, shriek hybrid caught in her throat—shock and fear mingling together. "Let me go," she demanded when she got her breath back, her body wiggling, trying to break free.
"It was worth a try, right, sweetheart?" I asked, turning her, pressing her back against the house, hands on her shoulders. "What's the matter?" I asked when she whimpered.
"I hurt my ankle," she told me, wincing. "No, don't touch me," she snapped when I stooped down.
"Just twisted," I decided after feeling it.
"What are you, no," she snapped when I dropped down a bit to scoop her up, pull her against my chest. "Aren't you supposed to be making me suffer?" she asked, shooting daggers at me.
"I am hoping to avoid that," I told her, arms tightening around her.
"You say that as though you don't have a say in it."
"Depends a lot on you, Romy," I told her as the pounding started inside the house, the men figuring out that she wasn't using the bathroom like she'd claimed. "It's alright. I got her," I called as they burst into the room.
"Fuck, sorry, Luca," Michael called, shaking his head.
"It's alright."
"You need a hand?"
I bit back the strange impulse to tell them that no one but me would ever be allowed to put their hands on her.
"I got her."
"I can walk," she insisted when I started carrying her around the house.
"I don't figure I can trust you on one leg any more than I can on two," I told her, watching as her lips twitched before she set them in a firm line.
Under different circumstances, I would have liked to try to find a reason to make those lips do more than merely twitch.
Lucky was right; it had been too long since I'd had a woman. And not even just sex. I hadn't taken a woman out, shared a meal, had a conversation. My life had been consumed with work and my men. Just seeing a lip twitch from a woman who might have been after my business was the highlight of my fucking week.
"Did you decide if you are going to talk to me or not?" I asked as we made our way through the house, down the stairs, grudgingly placing her back on her chair.
"I don't really have a choice, do I? If I want to get out of here eventually, that is. And if I want to avoid you calling your men down here to beat the truth out of me."
"Talking is always the best option in this kind of situation."
"Yeah? Do you think that way when the cops pull one of your men in for questioning?"
"That's assuming any of us ever get pulled in."
"Hypothetically."