grimly, “we’re kidnapping Robert Guthram as leverage over Marcus, and if that still doesn’t work, then I’ll kill him.”
33
Rowena
Broadmoor Hospital is a Victorian behemoth.
Chimney pots dot the roofline, stretching north toward a cloudless sky. Rows of double-arched windows parade across all three stories of the red-brick structure—there’s no mistaking the bars laid across each set. The grounds before the hospital offer a sparse but well-maintained lawn, and surrounding the entire facility is a tall fence, no doubt the electrical variety guaranteed to temper a flood of escape attempts.
All may enter and none shall leave.
I swallow, roughly, and dig my fingers into my thighs. Cast a quick glance to my right, where Damien has his laptop balanced against the steering wheel. Dark, messy hair falls over his forehead, and I stifle the urge to reach across the gearshift and rake those strands back from his handsome face.
“Do you know his diagnosis?” When blue eyes lift from the screen to collide with mine, I clarify, “Robert Guthram’s, I mean.”
“No.”
Fuck me.
Returning my attention to the hospital, my antsy fingers tap out a rhythmless beat. The good news: I’ve never met a man that I haven’t managed to charm, even with my teeth bared and my claws ready to draw blood. The bad news: I generally don’t remove them from psychiatric hospitals better known for housing the country’s most infamous serial killers.
Already dreading the answer, I ask, “When did you see him last?”
Damien leans over his laptop, his fingers scraping across the keyboard so fast, so efficiently, that it’s like watching a magician at work. “A decade,” he mutters around the pen clamped between his teeth, “give or take.”
“And he’s been here for all those years?”
Those nimble fingers lift from the keyboard as he looks my way. “You don’t have to do this.”
I don’t have to do much of anything, but still, the idea of Damien being caught by the hospital’s security team leaves me feeling strangely frantic. Whether he wants to admit it or not, the bounty Guthram placed on his head is a real threat. One wrong move, and he’ll find himself behind bars for the rest of his life.
“Your plan is reckless.”
“For anyone else, maybe,” he allows, giving the computer screen a sideways glance, as if whatever he’s doing there carries a time constraint, “but not for me.”
“Your ego, Damien.”
“Love, if you’re concerned about the size of my ego in a time like this, then we need to work on your priorities.” Plucking the pen from his mouth, he taps the end against the laptop. “In exactly thirty minutes, Broadmoor is going to sound like a bomb site during World War II. Every morning like clockwork. Which means that I either have twenty minutes to deactivate that alarm, leaving the security team in scrambles while I sneak in, or I’ll be taking the next ten minutes to rewrite Guthram’s file so you can get him out of there without a problem. I can’t do both.”
I raise my brows. “You can do all that from your laptop?”
“There’s really not much I can’t do.” He says it with such ease, such unlabored arrogance, that a spark of laughter burns in my chest. Brows knitting with consternation, he passes a hand over my shorn hair before cupping my face. “I won’t burden you with this,” he utters, his voice dark, hypnotic, “and I won’t sway you either way. But you have five minutes to decide before I’ll need to—”
“You can’t be seen.”
Those blue eyes, always so hot and fierce, turn glacial. “Don’t do this for me.”
I clasp my fingers over his wrist, holding tight. “If it weren’t for you, then I wouldn’t do this at all.”
“Rowena—”
“The way I look at it, there’s really no better way to feel alive than with a hastily-planned kidnapping.” I feel tethered to this man, bound to him. I didn’t lie when I said that, with pulling the trigger to a gun that wasn’t loaded, he took something from me—and I don’t think that I’ll ever get it back. Squeezing his hand, I let him go. “One kidnapping it is, courtesy of yours truly. Also, I’ll need your mobile to make the call to Kathryn. Mine went up in flames.” I tilt my chin toward the computer. “Will you be able to find her number on there?”
“Look at me.”
The command is an assault on my senses—deep and velvet and laced with undisguised need. When I turn my attention on Damien, it’s to find him with one hand planted against