Ugh, that would’ve been too easy.
She announced to the room, “I’ll just be right back. It’ll just take a minute to check on her. I’m sure she’s fine.” Then she flounced through the doorway and out into the restaurant.
She was outside the private room.
Colleen had done it. She’d gotten out again.
Which had been her plan for the first time except that Svetlana had needed rescuing far more than herself and Tristan.
If she could get them a car, she could call or text Tristan and have him get out somehow, maybe tell him that he needed to bring her something in the bathroom, and then they’d be free.
Colleen started hurrying through the restaurant, grabbing at her phone from her tiny purse and trying to poke the rideshare app with shaking fingers.
Commotion swelled behind her, a door slamming and male shouts.
Colleen trotted faster through the restaurant. Her finger kept slipping on the glass of her phone screen as she tried to tap while she ran, moving the app instead of clicking it.
Footsteps pounded behind her. She glanced back, ready to duck if someone was swinging or grabbing at her.
Tristan was dodging between the dining tables and gaining on her, watching behind himself and then catching her glance with his bright blue eyes.
He darted sideways toward the wall, and Colleen followed. Surely, they were better off together than apart.
On the wall, a small red box stood out from the gold-flecked plaster.
Tristan smashed it with his elbow and yanked the handle within.
Fire alarms blared.
Sprinklers rained water over the dining room and the patrons eating their meals.
Chaos.
Women screamed while men shouted, and everyone held their arms or menus over their heads while they ran in every direction, sometimes in circles, trying to find exits.
Tristan boomed, “Fire!” above the tinny screams and shouts.
Everyone seemed to take up the chant, screaming, “Fire!” as they wove between the tables, knocking some over.
Porcelain plates crashed, and wine glasses shattered on the floor as water showered over everything.
Tristan grabbed her hand and demanded, “Is the girl in the bathroom?”
Colleen shook her head. “No! I pushed her out the window!”
The water streaming over Tristan’s face glistened almost silver in the overhead lights. The dark vest defined his narrow waist and hips, and his wet dress shirt clung to his broad shoulders.
“You got her out? She’s gone?” he asked, his eyes intense as he stared at her.
He was pissed. He was pissed at her that she’d rescued Svetlana from the horrible things that slimeball Sergey had been doing to her after he’d bought her from a guy who’d kidnapped her from a small town in backwater Russia.
Colleen didn’t care. She drew her shoulders back and said, “I watched her get in the car after I pushed her out the window. He bought her, Tristan. He’s been raping her and burning her with cigarettes and other terrible things. You should have seen the way she sobbed in there and the way she thanked me so desperately, over and over, for just doing what a barely halfway-decent human being would do. She’s only sixteen! I couldn’t leave her with him.”
“You did the right thing,” he said as they skirted the edge of the crowd, shoving a fluttering man out of the way.
“But we might have gotten out if I would’ve left her,” Colleen fretted.
“I’ll get us out.”
