“You can put me down,” Leah said, her arm around his neck.
“That’s all right. I’m keeping you here.”
Turning two more corners, he saw Benny’s penthouse not too far away. All of a sudden, the world stilled. The air stiffened. He paused.
“What is it?” Leah asked as the traffic flowed by them.
Jasper looked at several busy restaurants on the sidewalk. “I don’t know. There’s…something.” He couldn’t place it.
He looked at the building again, which stood tall only two blocks away. The world silenced for the briefest of moments before an explosion rocked the penthouse, blowing every window outward with the sharp sound of shattering glass. Fire roared out of the now-broken windows. Several car alarms blared in answer.
“Shit,” he muttered, putting her down. “Apparently, they found Benny’s place. Come on.”
He turned down the nearest alley. The smell of rotten garbage and rodent feces filled his nose, but he kept going. Leah stumbled behind him without her shoes but didn’t complain once.
“I can carry you again.”
“I’m good,” she said, keeping pace. “But, Jasper, I have to get to the kids. I only have a couple of hours left.”
He twisted and turned around several alleys. “I know.”
“Why couldn’t I have managed to keep that recording pen anywhere but in my clutch?” Irritation coated her words. “Where are we going?”
“We have another safe house. It’s not as nice as Benny’s, but nobody knows about it. We can regroup there and call the police.”
She reached for his hand, sliding her small fingers between his. God, she was fragile. “The Kurjans also kidnapped seven enhanced females,” she whispered.
“We’ll rescue them.” After another hour of winding through the bowels of Paris, they’d nearly reached a small hole in thewall that he and his brothers had used before. Emerging from an alley about a block away from the flat, he stiffened and dropped her hand.
“What?” Leah ran into him and then paused, holding her stomach as she gasped for breath.
He looked down at her flushed face. “Kurjans. Can you sense them?”
She lifted her head. “No.”
Wonderful. They really needed to work on that skill.
“They’re covering what I thought was a safe house.”
Taking her hand again, he turned in the opposite direction, walking silently with her behind him for nearly an hour. He turned and looked at her. Her hair hung haphazardly around her face, and her dress was a disaster, the bottom part ripped and half the sequins gone. Splotches smeared her makeup, and filth covered her delicate feet from running on the cobblestones.
No doubt he looked like a fucking serial killer. Dried blood still coated the side of his face and neck. His jeans were ripped and bloody, and his light T-shirt showed plenty of his blood, as well as that of the Kurjans he’d fought. He knew because it kept burning him. Nobody would help them in this state, and the Kurjans had taken his phone.
He leaned down to whisper to his mate. “I don’t think we can get close enough to anybody to pick a pocket.” He peered out at the street and then tugged her back into the alley. “We need to find a much rougher neighborhood.”
She gulped, a streak of mascara mixed with dirt smudging her entire left cheekbone. “No problem. The charity auction should conclude in about thirty minutes. We can capture George as he leaves. I can jack an older car. Let’s stay away from CCTV.”
God, she was hot. Sexy, dangerous, and fragile, all in one little package. Now, she wanted to kidnap an asshole and jack a car.
He grinned.
Chapter Nine
Darkness began to fall as Leah followed Jasper from around the side of a crumbling tenement. “That one.” She pointed at a Peugeot 205 parked across the road—dented and battered but probably drivable.
Jasper winced but nodded, hurrying forward and snatching a stick off the ground on the way. He opened the driver’s side door and crouched. “You keep a lookout.”
“I can jack the car,” she said.
