least once to escape?
The door closed, the water went on, and the window jacked open.
I slipped back around the corner of the house as she carefully popped out the screen, then wedged her body out, pausing, then throwing her weight forward.
Clearly, the woman had never snuck out of the house as a teenager.
Because if I hadn't stepped out and grabbed her, she'd have fallen on her head.
A gasp, shriek hybrid caught in her throat—shock and fear mingling together. "Let me go," she demanded when she got her breath back, her body wiggling, trying to break free.
"It was worth a try, right, sweetheart?" I asked, turning her, pressing her back against the house, hands on her shoulders. "What's the matter?" I asked when she whimpered.
"I hurt my ankle," she told me, wincing. "No, don't touch me," she snapped when I stooped down.
"Just twisted," I decided after feeling it.
"What are you, no," she snapped when I dropped down a bit to scoop her up, pull her against my chest. "Aren't you supposed to be making me suffer?" she asked, shooting daggers at me.
"I am hoping to avoid that," I told her, arms tightening around her.
"You say that as though you don't have a say in it."
"Depends a lot on you, Romy," I told her as the pounding started inside the house, the men figuring out that she wasn't using the bathroom like she'd claimed. "It's alright. I got her," I called as they burst into the room.
"Fuck, sorry, Luca," Michael called, shaking his head.
"It's alright."
"You need a hand?"
I bit back the strange impulse to tell them that no one but me would ever be allowed to put their hands on her.
"I got her."
"I can walk," she insisted when I started carrying her around the house.
"I don't figure I can trust you on one leg any more than I can on two," I told her, watching as her lips twitched before she set them in a firm line.
Under different circumstances, I would have liked to try to find a reason to make those lips do more than merely twitch.
Lucky was right; it had been too long since I'd had a woman. And not even just sex. I hadn't taken a woman out, shared a meal, had a conversation. My life had been consumed with work and my men. Just seeing a lip twitch from a woman who might have been after my business was the highlight of my fucking week.
"Did you decide if you are going to talk to me or not?" I asked as we made our way through the house, down the stairs, grudgingly placing her back on her chair.
"I don't really have a choice, do I? If I want to get out of here eventually, that is. And if I want to avoid you calling your men down here to beat the truth out of me."
"Talking is always the best option in this kind of situation."
"Yeah? Do you think that way when the cops pull one of your men in for questioning?"
"That's assuming any of us ever get pulled in."
"Hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, they know what would happen to them if they spoke, so they would never think about talking. I figure the same goes in this situation, except if you don't talk. So talk. Save us both a long day."
"And me a lot of pain," she half-asked, half stated, holding fierce eye contact.
"Let's not let it come to that. Why are you at the docks? Who do you work for?"
"I think you are having memory issues. I've told you who I work for like three times."
"Right. The state of California. I mean who else are you working for? Who sent you here to New Jersey, to my docks?"
"My aunt," she told me, nothing about her tone or delivery making me think she was lying.
"And who is your aunt?"
"A child care worker in Venezuela," she told me. And, again, there seemed to be only truth there.
"Why would a child care worker from Venezuela send you to Navesink Bank?"
I was getting the feeling she was deliberately trying to tell me only part of the truth, only a small sliver of the whole picture.
To what end?
To buy more time?
Did she have partners out there?
Had she called in reinforcements when she thought she was in trouble?
Could they have possibly followed us here?
"Romy, I am going to need some straighter answers from you."
"A week or so ago, I got a call from my aunt who told me that she hadn't seen my sister in a while. In