I shoved the bars.
The metal rods clattered to the wooden ledge below.
As I clambered out, a yank on my wrist almost dragged me back inside, but I let my arm go limp and escaped. I fell and leaped to my feet. I ran along the wood to the end, shoving and squeezing between the bars and being real glad I wasn’t wearing pretty sundresses or tailored suits like Clementine. Denim jeans were saving my life.
The wooden ledge was three stories up. I’d break my whole body if I jumped to the empty asphalt-paved courtyard below.
Instead, I sucked in my stomach to squeeze between the wires. With a tilt of my hips, I jumped off the side of the wooden walkway and kipped in the air to swing myself underneath it.
I was twenty-one, and against all odds, my high school had had a playground and monkey bars. Unlike most adults, it had only been three years since I’d played cutthroat monkey-bars tag instead of eating lunch.
Air rushed past my arms as I fell.
The hard shock of landing on Juliet’s stone balcony jarred my arms and legs, and I scraped and banged my elbow on the wall.
My purse was gone. That stupid white bucket purse from my wedding to Jimmy had been dangling on my wrist, and that’s what the guy had grabbed up there and I’d let go to get away.
No!Jesus, the money, Nico’s credit card, my wallet, myphone,all of it.
Dammit. Oh, dammit.
Men yelled above.
Footsteps thundered on the wooden stairs.
I stood on Juliet’s balcony.
Inside the house on the second floor, six heaps leaked blood.
One moved, a little.
Aymeric was still.
Feet and legs appeared on the staircase from the third floor, none wearing the black suit pants and trail-running sneakers that all of Nicolai’s security people seemed to sport like a uniform.
Khakis, black sweatpants, green fatigues.
All wore heavy black boots.
I turned back to the balcony and the courtyard.
One more time.
I rested my stomach on the balcony stone rail that was over a foot thick and swung my legs over, and I shoved off and fell.
Landing on the pebbled pavement was a crash, and I rolled to my feet.
Iron bars gridded the arch where I’d come into the courtyard.
The portcullis in the arch was down.
I was boxed in with them.
There were so many of them. I couldn’t lead them back to Nico and his few security guys. They’d kill Nicolai, too. I couldn’t let them kill or kidnap Nico.
Not when I could get away.
I could try to warn him, though.
