For now, she shoved the phone in her pocket, hoisted Jorge’s diaper bag, along with some clean clothes she’d been folding before Valeria’s call, onto her shoulder, and lifted her sleeping nephew from his crib. Thankfully, he didn’t stir. Then she climbed the recliner in the corner and jumped out into the inky night.
Before she could shut the window behind her, the bedroom door crashed open. Her gaze connected with a familiar black stare, shooting fury and retribution.
Victor.
Clutching Jorge protectively, Laila ran.
Since arriving here after the breach of their safe house in St. Louis, she’d done one important thing to prepare for an emergency: learned the neighborhood and planned escape routes. She knew places to hide where Victor hopefully wouldn’t find her.
As she dashed across the yard, her heart thudded painfully when he scrambled out the window in pursuit. Laila launched herself behind a pair of palms and through some overgrown oleanders. She crouched to hide, groping in the dark until she encountered the fence separating their house from the place next door.
Her first week here, she had discovered a gate buried behind climbing bougainvillea and clipped the fast-growing vine just enough to open it and slip free. The effort paid off now. Laila disappeared through the foliage, biting back a hiss when branches scratched her bare arms, then emerged into the neighbor’s yard. The house sat dark since the single man who lived there worked nights.
She made her way to his shed, which he seemingly didn’t lock, and breathed a short sigh of relief. Victor was undoubtedly wondering where and how she’d disappeared. It would take him a while—and a flashlight she would see coming—to figure it out.
Inside the dark, confined space, she watched through the tiny prefab structure’s window for light or movement as she soothed a groggy Jorge with one hand and pulled her assailant’s phone free with the other, quickly turning off location services. Then she rang her sister to reassure her.
No answer.
Laila tried to rationalize reasons Valeria wouldn’t answer, other than Victor’s brother, Hector, or another of Emilo’s underlings somehow finding her. She couldn’t imagine many.
Beating back panic, Laila dialed her sister again. After four rings, Valeria’s voicemail kicked in.
With her heart racing, she cut the call and started to text—until she saw a flash of light eking from the gate she had just used to escape.
No time to warn Valeria. She had to put distance between her and Victor.
Jorge fussed, grunting, a furrow forming between his half-open eyes as he worked up a wail of displeasure.
“No. No…” Frantically, she used one hand to search the pockets of the diaper bag to find her nephew’s pacifier while trying to placate him with the other.
If Victor got his hands on her, she was dead. And Valeria would never see her son again.
Anxiety choked Laila until she found the rubber nipple and worked it into Jorge’s mouth. He took to it, sucking contentedly and settling back into her arms with a slumberous sigh.
Grateful, she let herself out of the shed and stole across the neighbor’s patio through the shadows. On the far end, she let herself out the backyard on the side of the house, where she plastered herself against the fence, panting hard.
Thankfully, she didn’t see any of Victor’s other goons—yet. She needed to get out of the neighborhood, but Valeria had taken their one car to the concert. She knew none of her neighbors. The police still hadn’t arrived. And she wouldn’t get enough distance to escape Victor with a sleeping toddler in her arms.
She had to think.
Scanning the street, she spotted the house occupied by an older woman who walked her three dogs nearly every morning. Shortly after she and Valeria had been relocated here by the EM Security team, Laila had observed a gathering there. A wake, based on the fact everyone had worn black. The woman’s husband had probably passed away since Laila had never seen a man there.
She had also noticed that the woman often left her keys in her car.
Taking one last glance around the empty cul-de-sac, she dashed to the small SUV, avoiding the streetlights, and said a prayer upward as she pulled the door handle. Unlocked. Thank God!
Since she had no car seat for Jorge, she clutched the sleeping toddler against her as she grabbed the keys from the middle console, then slid into the driver’s seat and eased the door shut, hoping Victor hadn’t heard.
Shaking, Laila shoved the key in the ignition and started the car, then looked in the rearview mirror. She gasped.
Victor stood at the end of the driveway, pointing a gun at the back windshield.
She was as good as dead.
January 26
EM Security Management
Lafayette, Louisiana
Forest Scott pushed back from his desk with a curse. Since driving seven hours, following the takedown of a crazy cult in the Texas Hill Country, he’d returned to the office and started analyzing the laptops of two fellow—suddenly former—operatives, looking for a miracle that would save his ass.