Chapter 20 Harrison
HARRISON
“Please tell me you’re joking,” I say.
She shakes her head, her lips trembling. “No. It’s locked. We’re trapped in here, Harrison."
I charge ahead, grip the doorknob with all my strength, and pull.
It won’t budge.
I yank on the door, kick at it, pound at it until my knuckles are bleeding.
Fuck!
Rose upgraded our suite not to ensure my silence, but to lock us away.
Probably until he can get in contact with Rouge and have one of her Kings come up and take care of us.
And then, best case scenario, we’ll end up imprisoned like Maddox and Alissa.
Worst case, we’ll be ripped open with our organs sold on the black market.
I reach into my pocket for my phone. Shit! I took it out of my pocket earlier and the bellhop must have scooped it up when he grabbed our bags. I run to the bedroom to see if he left our suitcases in there, but I already know they’re not here.
We have no way of getting out of this room. And none of our personal effects—no phones, wallets, keys…
I sit down on the velvet couch in the living area, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I think I royally fucked things up, Bianca.”
She sits beside me. “There’s no way you could have known this was a trap. You didn’t know what Mr. Rose was capable of.”
I shake my head. “I knew he was a fucking asshole. I should have known he couldn’t be trusted. I thought I had him cornered, but I was just playing right into his damned hand.”
She pats my hand. “He can’t keep us in here forever.”
“No. Just long enough for him to walk over to Aces, collect Rouge, and tell her he has her star singer and a man who’s been disguising himself as one of her employees on his security footage.”
“Rouge doesn’t know that we know about the organs.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I slide my fingers through my hair. “She’ll be able to easily figure out it was me disguised as the Ace on Tuesday night. And she’ll know you’re involved. It won’t be that hard for her to deduce what we discovered from there.”
She pops to her feet. “Then we’d better think fast.”
“It won’t make any difference. He’s probably on the phone with Rouge right now.”
Bianca’s eyes gleam. “One other thing about my sister. She doesn’t have a cell phone.”
My eyebrow shoot up. “She doesn’t?”
“She has a secure landline at her home, and she uses a walkie-talkie when she’s on the Aces grounds. But she likes to keep people at a distance, and not having a cell phone is how she accomplishes that.”
I jump off the couch. “Then…shit. We might be able to beat him to the punch.”
She paces around the room. “The fastest Mr. Rose could get the information to her would be if he drove to her home. And that’s if he knows where she lives. Rouge is notoriously tightlipped about her private life. Even I don’t know her address.”
“So depending on where she lives, we probably have a half hour or so.”
“And that’s if he knows. Otherwise, he won’t be able to get in contact with her until tonight, when Aces opens.”
“Okay.” I scan the suite. God, it’s the nicest prison I’ve ever seen. The front door isn’t an option, but there is a sliding glass door that leads to a sizeable balcony.
We’re on the twelfth floor, though. Even if we made a rope out of bedsheets and somehow didn’t slip to our deaths, it wouldn’t be long enough to make it to the ground.
But maybe…
Maybe we don’t have to get to the ground.
Just to the balcony of a room that isn’t locked.
I grip the handle of the sliding glass door, but it’s sealed shut.
No matter.
I take a heavy-looking modern sculpture off one of the side tables by the couch and ram it against the glass. It takes a few tries, but I eventually shatter it.
Bianca gasps.
I glance over my shoulder. “Guess they’ll have to take that out of our incidentals charge.
” I gesture to the bedroom. “Come on. We can make a rope out of the bedsheets and swing down to the balcony below. That room hopefully won’t be locked from the outside, so we’ll be able to break in and get free. ”
“What if there’s someone in the room already?” Bianca looks down at the plush bathrobe she’s wearing. “Need I remind you this is all I have to wear?”
Shit. I changed before I went to get breakfast, but Bianca has only the robe. And the bellhop never dropped off our bags.
“We’ll figure it out,” I say. “Worst case, we’ll pop into a thrift shop and buy you some clothes.”
“With what money? I’m assuming you don’t have your wallet on you, either.”
Fuck. She’s right.
“Again, we’ll figure it out. Right now our only priority is to get the fuck out of here before Rose can get in contact with your sister. After that, we’ll take it one step at a time.”
She draws in a slow breath. “Okay.” She heads toward the bedroom, returns with all the sheets in a bundle, and throws them down on a Turkish rug near the sliding glass doors. “Do you know how to make a rope?”
“I think so. We’ll have to cut the sheet into strips.” I look around. “Anything around here that we could use?”
“Maybe there are some knives in the kitchenette.” Bianca crosses the room and opens a few small drawers. She pulls out a chef knife. “Bingo!”
I scoff. “As if anyone who ever rents this room would cook for themselves. But I’ll take a win where I can.” I hand her the sheet. “You hold it taut while I cut it into strips.”
Soon we have a dozen strips of cloth at our feet.
“The next thing we do is braid the sheets into makeshift ropes. That way they’ll be stronger and we won’t have to worry about them breaking under our weight.”
She nods. “I can do that. I’m sure a flat braid will work just fine. I have lots of practice from braiding my dolls’ hair when I was growing up. Never thought I’d use those skills to save my own hide, but here we are.”
She lays the strips parallel to one another and slowly weaves them around each other. It takes a while, but within the next forty-five minutes, we have a few yards’ worth of material to work with.
“This should be enough for us to swing down to the next balcony,” I say.
“But will it be strong enough?” Bianca asks.
“Only one way to find out.” I secure the rope to the edge of the balcony, give it a few strong pulls, and then sweep my right leg over the side of the balcony.
“Harrison, no!” Bianca cries out. “We need to test it first.”
“We don’t have time, babe. It’s been nearly an hour since we were locked in this room. We need to neutralize Rose quickly.” I wave her over.
“There must be some other—”
“There isn’t.” I reel her in for a quick kiss. “If anything happens to me, know that I love you more than anything in the world.”
“I love you, too.” She wipes a tear from her cheek.
I grin. “See you on the other side.”
I bring my other leg to the exterior of the balcony and then, before I can think better of it, I take a leap of faith.
The rope holds, and I swing down onto the balcony of the room below us.
“Harrison?” Bianca calls from above.
“It’s okay. The rope held.”
“All right. I’m coming after you.”
I’m not as worried now. If the rope held me, it’ll certainly be able to bear Bianca’s weight.
She swings down into my open arms and I help her down to her feet.
Her eyes are wide. “I would like to never do that again.”
“Deal.” I give her another kiss and then gaze into the hotel room.
Damn. It looks lived-in. A few pieces of clothing strewn about the floor, an open suitcase on a luggage rack, and a few faint curls of steam coming from the bathroom door.
“They’re in the shower,” I say. “We have to get in quickly.”
I slide the door open, looking around. No one else in the room. It’s a straight line to the front door. Good.
We’ll have to act quickly.
I steal into the room and make a beeline to the front. I’m just about to make it when I find an answer to our next problem—getting Bianca some clothes—lying on top of the room’s minifridge.
A man’s wallet, stuffed to the brim with bills.
Finally, a fucking break for the two of us.
I reach in and grab a few hundred-dollar bills.
“Harrison!” Bianca hisses.
“I’ll gladly come back and give this guy twice as much as we’ve taken once we’ve gotten the hell out of here.” I stuff the bills into my pants pocket. “For now, we need a little cash if we’re going to get around. We—”
The shower turns off.
Fuck.
I gesture to the door. “Now!” I whip it open and the two of us clear the room before its occupant can discover us. We run down the hall and I pound the elevator button so hard that its tiny plastic casing cracks.
I’m not sure what our next move is, but we have about thirty seconds before we hit the lobby.
Operating solely on instinct, I head to the front desk. It’s manned by someone different from when we checked in, a young man with medium-length dark hair.
He smiles as we approach him, but there’s a tenseness to his face. Probably caused by the fact that Bianca is still in a bathrobe.
One crisis at a time.
“Hello, sir. Ma’am. Are you locked out of your room?”
“No. Nothing like that. Actually, we’re the couple Mr. Rose just gave a complimentary upgrade to. We wanted to see him and thank him in person for his generosity.”
“Of course.” The young man rakes his gaze over me, his eyes narrowed. “I understand perfectly.”
I hold back an eye roll. Mr. Rose probably brings call boys to this hotel all the time, gives them nice rooms. Of course, I have Bianca with me. I doubt said male escorts have a woman with them. I guess he could be bisexual. He is married with kids, after all.
A three-way with him and Bianca is the last thing on my mind.
“Mr. Rose is in his office.” The receptionist picks up a phone. “I’ll give him a ring and let him know to expect you.”
I hold up a hand. “Please don’t. We’re hoping to surprise him.” I add a wink to seal the meaning of my words.
He swallows. “Oh. Of course. Go right ahead then, sir.”
I’ll have to take a long shower after all this.
We walk over to the mahogany door. I take a deep breath to center myself and then open it.
Rose is at his desk on the phone. He drops his jaw as we walk in, and Bianca quickly runs to the other side of the office and whips the phone cord out of the wall.
“What… What are you doing here?” he gasps out.
I don’t answer him. I leap across the room, soar over his desk with my hands outstretched, and wrap them around his neck. He coughs, sputters, and his eyes start to bulge out of their sockets.
But before I can get him unconscious, he kicks me in the balls.
Oh fuck!
Pain. Such fucking pain! It shoots through my whole body.
I hunch over on the ground in agony.
He scrambles to his feet. But before he can hurt me again, Bianca smacks him across the face with the marble bust of his father.
I get up in time to see blood gushing out of his nose as he turns on Bianca.
No way in hell is he going to lay a finger on her.
Despite the pains still hurdling through my lower body, I get to my feet, throw myself between the two of them, and land a right hook to Rose’s left cheek. Then an uppercut for good measure.
He stumbles back but quickly returns with a punch to my gut. I double over and he lands a kick to the back of my knees, bringing me down again.
The floor is strewn with pens and pieces of stationery. I grab the nearest item to me—a navy-blue fountain pen—and get back to my feet.
Rose is advancing again, but this time I have a weapon.
Before Rose can land another hit, I raise the pen and ram it right into his left eye.