“Take me to your place. We can hang out.”
He started to stand, holding me, and I laughed, standing myself.
“You’re not carrying me. And actually, you’re coming to my place because my dad’s less likely to find you there.”
“Good point.” He winced. “You sure you’re okay with getting in trouble with him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t care, but also, Tan’s the one who told me to get you out. I had no idea you were the one I was coming to get out, either. He just sent me here and literally saidyou havemy permission to get him out.I was like who? And he hung up. It was ridiculous. I tried to call you, but obvs, you didn’t answer. Does Dad have your phone?”
“Uh… I think it’s in my pocket.” He checked and pulled it out, wincing. “Sorry, it was on silent.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. At least Tan sent me down here. Dork.”
He paused. “Tan really helped?”
I nodded and grabbed his hand, lacing our fingers together like I’d wanted to for weeks. “Yeppers. Let’s go.”
We made it all the way to the elevator before it dinged and opened, startling the shit out of me.
Terrell, a gargoyle royal guard, stood there, holding a big tray of food and drinks. He took us in, his eyes widening when he realized Roman was out of his cell.
“Um… you’re out already. Uh…” He glanced down at the tray, then shoved it toward us.
Roman released my hand to take it from him, eyeing the gargoyle warily.
Terrell took a breath, then sighed. “I never saw you, okay? Or I guess, you never saw me? Just… pretend someone you don’t know gave you the food in your cell, yeah? I don’t want the king to yell at me, and I turned the cameras off down here a while ago, so I didn’t even know you’d already been rescued. Obviously.”
My eyebrows rose. “You’re not going to tell my dad that I broke him out?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course not. It’s not like he was in there for a legitimate reason anyway. Tan told me everything, which is why I brought you some food.” He made a face. “You, um, will find a keycard under the plate, but I see you don’t need it.” He sent Roman a small smile. “You’ve always been good to me, sir, and… congratulations to you both.” He turned on hisheel, stepped back into the elevator, and started to hit the close button. “I was never here.”
“Who was never here?” I asked with a grin. “I didn’t see anyone.”
He laughed, so I winked at him and turned to Roman when the doors finally shut.
“Well… let’s take this food upstairs with us. No reason to let it go to waste.”
Roman grinned. “No reason at all.”
After I was sure Terrell’s elevator had started its journey upward, I hit the elevator button again, biting my lip as I thought about my dad finding Roman in my condo. Would he think to look there? What would I do if he came in and tried to take him again?
Glancing at Roman, I chewed on my lip for a few seconds. “Do you think we should go somewhere else?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is it wise to hide in the tower at all? My dad has that like, weird connection with it, like it’s sentient almost or whatever. What if it tells him exactly where you are?”
Rome stared at me for a few seconds before blowing out a long breath. “I’m not sure. On the one hand, he might not suspect you, but on the other…”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Then what do you suggest? If we get a hotel, he’ll be able to track us easily. We can give false names, but our payment will be trackable, and even if we get around that, if the king called them, there’s no way the workers would lie for us—I wouldn’t want them to.”
I grimaced. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble… but… what if I call Ker?”Ugh. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent Anton away already, but too late.
“For what? To stay there?”
I nodded. “I know they still have a few spare rooms, so they have the space. And Dad might think to call Anton, but it’s not like he’ll storm the ancient vampire’s home. There’s no way. He respects him too much, and there’s like a billion ancient vamps that live there, so that would be really bad.” Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Jed and his siblings were even older than Dad and Rome—especially since Jed acted like a teenager half the time—but they were old as crap, and I knew my dad would never want to make enemies of them.
