My limbs go numb.
Bitch, reboot!
“What happens if you find me?” The question scrapes through a jagged breath, down the gravel in my throat on the way to the pit of my stomach.
For the first time, Benny smiles.
“The clock starts now, Trouble.”
His phone is in my hand before I run out of the room. I expect him to barrel out of my cell in a blind rage, but he never comes. Not that I’m waiting around to find out.
I try the door to the garage. Locked.
“Who is this?”
“Oh, thank God!” I huff up the stairs after skidding into the edge of the rail like Tom Cruise in his drawers and button-down. “Stephanie.”
“Bianca? Bitch, why are you heaving in my ear? Whose phone are you on?”
Metal pounds under my feet. Running for my life is going on my résumé.
“I—stole—he’s—“
“He?“ Stephanie’s voice lowers. “Are you fucking on the phone?”
I make a hard left out of the door at the top of the stairs, bypassing the kitchen.
“Breathing all heavy.”
“Steph,” I pant. Why didn’t I call Vince?
A smile weaves through her giggles. “Need me to talk you through it?”
“Be serious for once in your life! I’ve been kidnapped! Call the UN and have someone rescue me in Sicily. Hello? Hello?”
I lift the phone from my ear and frown. The battery is at ninety percent, but the call dropped. I try to dial Stephanie again. Nothing.
A pop-up message appears on the screen.
Seventy seconds. Lose the phone. It won’t work.
What in the entire fuck?
“How is this fair?!” My voice bounces across gold wallpaper andDownton Abbeyfurniture.
The floor is empty. No Alfred. No Bane. No one is here to listen to my wheezing because their boss wants to play hide-and-seek. I knew he lost his mind after hacking a man to death, but this Animal-Planet-catch-your-prey situation is complete bullshit.
“Where the hell is the front door?” I ask absolutely no one. I have neither the stamina nor the arm muscles to scale a main gate without pulling something, but I’ll do it.
The phone buzzes again.
Forty seconds.
“Shit!”
I sprint down a maze of open doorways connecting decorative marble tiles to rooms covered in area rugs. An open balcony with a chair and an accent table appears. Beyond it is a manicured courtyard with no entrance in sight. Hedges and trees shine under outdoor lights, framing stone pathways that converge at a fountain in the middle.
This “manor” is a fortress. A square border of connected buildings with no main gate or back entrance. That’s why he let me run.
