“Oh my God, do you know what I just realized?” Novalee’s laughter bubbles up, louder than usual, like the adrenaline is still riding her hard. “Not only did you crash a Mustang but now a Lambo too. And you tell me I’m a bad driver.”
“Well, I don’t have a license either,” Alaric fires back, and Novalee’s answering laughter actually clips the mic, cutting off sound from the earpieces until Alaric adds, “Thanks, Sy. We’re in the elevator.”
Sylus grins as he finishes typing with one last flourish. “And I just broadcasted our little show over all of Veronica’s establishments.”
Levi whoops, throwing his hands in the air. “Hell yeah!”
Even Koen grins at that, and in the next moment, Sylus slides his laptop back into place and moves to get the van going again.
“The crowd’s thinning out,” he observes as he carefully moves toward the Heights’ entrance. “The panic seems to be over.”
Levi peers out the front with a scowl. “Still way too many people around for my taste. Fuck, they’re all shoulder to shoulder. How do we get through that?”
Koen’s gaze darkens, and I know he’s already strategizing.
“Almost out,” Alaric’s voice growls through the comms.
“Almost there,” Sylus says in response from the front, his focus locked on the road as the van inches closer to the Heights’ entry.
I glance out the back window to scan the thinning crowd and freeze when I see her.
Veronica.
She’s slipping out of a side door of the Heights, flanked by two of her security guards.
She’s getting away.
Because of me.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I reach for the sliding door of the van.
“What the fuck are you doing, Snickers?” Koen snaps.
“Fixing my fuckup,” I yell back as I yank open the door and jump out, sliding it shut before the people outside get a glimpse at the Lane twins.
“Get back here,” Ezra yells. “Let her be. The police will get her.”
“And what if they don’t?” I reply through the comms as I bolt toward where I saw her disappear, my pulse pounding as I scan my surroundings, desperate for a way through.
I turn my gaze toward the sky, begging them for an answer.
Surprisingly, it comes to me.
The balconies on the first floor of the Heights.
They’re spaced just close enough to be reachable.
I double back toward the van, ignoring the shouted protests in my earpiece, and clamber onto the hood.
“What the fuck,Short King?” Sylus pounds his fist on the windshield. “You’re gonna make a dent in it!”
“I paid for this pile of rust.” I glance at Sylus through the windshield. “I can dent it as much as I want.” Then, I leap onto the van’s roof, making the metal creak under my weight.
Sylus rolls down the window and yells at me, apparently not satisfied to use the comms. “Hell,Harrington, what are you doing?”
I don’t respond because I’m too busy jumping.
My fingers grip the edge of the first balcony, and the metal bites into my skin as I dangle there for a second, my muscles straining as I pull myself up and over the railing.
