Cruel Shame (Knights of Templar Academy #3) - Sofia Daniel Page 0,85
the coat over my naked body, bolted to the door, and flung it open—
Only to meet Lady Liddell standing in the attic stairwell with a gun.
Chapter Thirty-Three
My eyes locked with Lady Liddell’s, and a gasp caught in my throat. If it wasn’t for the false eyelashes and oversized lips, I might never have recognized the woman. She wore a gray tracksuit with a hooded top, looking like she’d just spent an afternoon jogging.
A blast of cold air from outside blew up the stairwell across my bare skin, making it pucker into goosebumps. I clenched my teeth to stop them from chattering.
Lady Liddell swept her gaze down the entire length of my naked body and back up to the rope still attached around my limbs and snarled. “Get back inside.”
I swallowed. Right now, a homicidal woman with a gun was preferable to what was waiting for me inside that attic.
Father Neapolitan’s outraged scream made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. If he was at the anger stage of a ball-busting, it wouldn’t be long before the pain faded enough for him to get his revenge.
Lady Liddell raised her pistol and shot it into the ceiling, willing the air with the blast of gunfire and a shower of dust and splinters.
Cold shock barreled through my gut, and my heart stuttered with palpitations of terror. Every ounce of concentration coalesced toward the gun now pointing at my face.
“I won’t ask you again,” she shrieked through the ringing of my ears. “Get back into that room or I will shoot you through the eyes.”
On trembling legs, I took one step up the stairs, followed by another. Sweat gathered on my skin and soaked into the stolen coat tucked under my arm. This was worse than the situation last Saturday with Myra. At least then, there was an academy-full of people who could walk in on us. Here, isolated at the end of the Liddell estate, there was no one except for the two people who both despised me and wanted me dead.
It took an eternity for me to scale those few steps. After the second, my body wouldn’t cooperate. Lady Liddell must have engineered my abduction the way she’d engineered my shooting. How many sexual assaults had she covered up for Father Neapolitan over the years? For her husband? I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d helped cover up murders, too. And I would be the latest of their victims.
The door behind me opened, and a rough hand grabbed the ropes around my neck and hauled me into the attic.
“You’ll pay for this, whore,” Father Neapolitan snarled.
“Thomas,” Lady Liddell hissed. “What the hell are you doing?”
Father Neapolitan stepped away. “You told me to bring the girl here. Here she is.”
“Did you touch her?” she asked.
“Not yet—”
“How will you explain it to the police when they find your DNA on her body?”
Terror shuddered through my insides. She really did mean for me to die. I stepped to the side, trying not to make it obvious that I was looking at the door, but Father Neapolitan tightened his grip on the ropes around my neck.
The man sighed and bowed his head. “Right. I didn’t think.”
Lady Liddell ranted that he’d once again ruined another plan. My gaze darted around the room for another possible escape. I only found the door leading down the stairs and the arched window I’d seen before.
The chapel was only a one-story building, but its main room had double-height ceilings, making this level approximately three-stories high. That glass in the arched window was probably breakable, and I might survive a jump. Even if they dragged me back up the stairs and ended my life, there’d be enough blood spatters both in and outside the chapel for the police to notice when someone reported me missing.
My heart plummeted, as did my dwindling hope for survival. I was already thinking about leaving a forensic trail for the police to avenge my death. Cameron Liddell would probably suppress my murder investigation the way he seemed to do with anything related his family’s wrongdoings.
I shook off the outrage and focused on the coat beneath my arm. There was a flick knife in one pocket and something as heavy as a gun in the other. My fingers slid around the wool fabric, searching for an opening. As they slid through a pocket of satin, they closed around the plastic casing of a phone. I pulled out my hand and searched for the next