Chapter 10
BIANCA
By the time Weller leaves to check the back of the house, I am crouched beside Whitney’s bed, wrenching a knot tight.
The linen saws across my palm. Working end through the loop, around the standing line, back down.
Pull. The loose thread caught under my thumbnail can stay there until we’re in the woods.
Pregnant comes back in Montgomery’s voice, thrown across a ballroom full of people who stared at my stomach. I pull harder. The bitter chemical film from his champagne still coats the back of my tongue, and swallowing only drags it lower.
Over, under, around. Knot.
Anna used to stand behind me at the refuge and undo every bowline I got wrong without saying a word. When one held, her hand slapped my shoulder once.
This one holds.
Tristan stays in the sliver of wall beside the open window, his face angled toward the feed from the lawn camera. Burnt amber reaches me when he shifts, and I have the urge to bite him.
“Camera’s turning toward the drive,” he says.
I shove the bundled sheets over the sill. They unwind down the brick toward the wet lawn while I catch the metal at Tristan’s throat between two fingers. The steel stays cold against my fingertips, locked and silent.
“We need these off.”
“The moment we have distance.” His eyes flick to my hand at his throat. “Hopefully before you decide mine is another leash to pull.”
“You’d love for me to pull your leash.”
“Maybe.”
I let him go and test the bedpost again. Not super trustworthy. Owen could drag half the room out the window with him just because he won’t be gentle going down. Unfortunately, it’s the only anchor we have.
Cool air pushes up the ripped front of my dress and flicks the skirt against my bare legs. The necklace Montgomery put on me presses against my throat, suddenly heavier than the collars.
“Unclasp this, Tris.”
His fingers find the catch. They linger against my nape after the weight falls away, and my body tries to arch into the touch like we are not seconds from running.
“You could keep it,” he murmurs. “Probably worth millions.”
I toss it onto Whitney’s frilly bed. “I don’t want his money. I definitely don’t want his creepy old shit.”
Freddie backs through the door with one end of a wooden crate. Owen carries the other, three more stacked on top and every one packed with fireworks.
We’re doing it.
“That’s all of them.” Freddie lowers his end, breathing through his mouth. “We blocked the doors downstairs with heavy furniture.”
“Hale moved most of the guards to the front and south sides.” Owen braces a palm on the top crate.
A bottle rocket rolls free and disappears beneath a little floral chair. For one dark, completely useless second, I imagine all four of them fucking me into her bed before we burn it.
She came back to haunt me.
Freddie fishes the rocket out and drops it into the crate. Owen watches him, blackcurrant flooding my mouth as his aggression fills the room.
“Fuck outside,” he says. “I’m lighting them here. Let the bitch burn.”
My omega presses toward him while my attention keeps snapping to the open door, waiting for Weller. “Agreed.”
Owen holds my gaze. “Remember the plan, Princess. You stay with them. I follow. You do not turn around.”
“You better come find me.”
“I will hunt you to the ends of the earth, Princess.”
Weller appears with the small bag we packed, and the part of my body tracking him finally shuts up.
He crosses to me, his hand closing around my elbow before he tells the others Hale is occupied with police at the front of the property.
A few guards remain behind the house. Enough to ruin plans if we hesitate.
“We don’t know what escaped the ballroom,” he adds, looking at me. The footage. “Montgomery will try to contain it. Law enforcement may decide you acted in self-defense. They may also decide you are wanted for murder. We won’t be here when they make that decision.”
Tristan gathers the sheet rope. “I’ll go first and test it, then Bianca, Weller, Freddie. Owen lights it up and follows.”
“And if they reach Owen first?”
Weller steps between us before I can get closer to him. “You don’t stop. You run for the trees.”
“Weller. I asked a question.”
His fingers close around my wrist. He is scared. I can hear it in how precise he becomes, every word locked down before it leaves him. “If one of us goes down, you keep moving.”
Owen’s broad hand settles at my nape, gentler than it has any right to be. “Promise, Princess.”
Heat cinches between my legs at both touches. Humiliation burns up my throat. I dig my bare toes into the carpet until my legs lock.
“I promise.”
“Good.” Owen releases me and shoves a pair of sneakers into my hands. “Now put these on. I’m not rescuing you from a splinter ten feet into the woods.”
I catch his wrist before he steps away and press my mouth to the heel of his palm. “Don’t be too long.”
His fingers are rough against my cheek. Then Tristan climbs onto the sill, and there is no time left for anything but leaving.
He descends with his feet braced against the brick. At the bottom, he drops the remaining distance and raises both hands toward me.
“Camera’s clear. Come down. I’ll catch you.”
Sure. Because I have spent years learning survival skills so a smug blond asshole can play prince while I fall out a window.
Security lights bleach most of the lawn. The few dark strips between them look too narrow, and the woods have somehow moved farther from the house.
Owen’s palm settles on my back. “Go.”
I grip the sheet and ease over the edge. The line twists beneath me. My shoulder bangs against brick, one sneaker skids, and I slide the last few feet with all the elegance of a drunk squirrel.
Tristan catches me by the waist and lowers me into the wet grass. “Very graceful, but the view was great.”
I punch his shoulder. “Shut up.”
Weller comes down with controlled, efficient movements, because of course he makes escaping look like a military exercise. Freddie follows. The moment his shoes hit the lawn, Weller points toward the trees.
“Move.”
We run. Cold grass lashes my ankles, and mud sucks at my shoes after days of rain. Tristan runs ahead while Weller stays behind me and Freddie keeps pace at my side. My body measures every step opening between us and Owen.
I hate it. I want to go back.
A flashlight beam sweeps over the lawn and catches us.
“Hey! Stop.”
Running now gives him every excuse to fire. A man blocks the path ahead, one hand lifting his radio. His beam passes over my face, and regret pulls at his expression. Hope hits me right before his thumb finds the switch.
“Mr. Farrow.” Freddie steps forward with both hands open, his voice warm enough to make the lie feel possible. “Give us a head start. Then call it in.”
“I’m sorry, son.”
The knife is already in my palm. I turn the blade once, let it fly through the white bar of his flashlight, and bury it to the handle in the thick outer muscle of his thigh.
The impact spins him half a step. Farrow cries out and folds, both hands stopping short of the handle as blood pushes dark through his uniform pants.
The sound he makes is pained.
“I’m sorry, too.” I am, a little. “Leave the knife in. It won’t kill you.”
Freddie tears off his belt and cinches it high around Farrow’s thigh. His fingers come away red when he yanks the buckle tight. Tristan takes the radio.
“We gotta go.”
A shout erupts near the east wing. Another answers closer than the first.
The woods close around us, branches raking my arms as we crash through dense shrubbage.
Freddie stumbles and lets out a choked sound. His whole body jerks before he hits his knees.
“The collar.” He claws at the metal. “Fuck, that hurts—but it’s weak.”
Weller and Tristan both fold around the same invisible blow. It lasts barely a second, but it is enough.
“We’re reaching the range limit,” Weller grinds out. He hauls Freddie upright. “Increase the distance. Run.”
“Owen.” I twist toward the pale scraps of house between the trunks. “He hasn’t come out.”
“He’ll come.” Freddie’s breath catches when he straightens, but he stays on his feet.
Only shouts come through the trees. No explosion. No Owen.
I take one step back toward the trail we tore open, and Weller closes a hand around my upper arm.
“No.”
“His collar will still be in range. What if they found him?”
“Then our remaining here will not help him.”
“Let go of me.”
His command bears down on my instincts, calling for obedience when every useful part of me wants to run back into the house. “Bianca. Keep moving.”
“I lied.”
His brows draw together. “About what?”
“Promising to keep going.” I wrench free. “I’m not leaving him.”
I make it three steps before Tristan catches me around the waist and lifts my feet off the ground.
“Put me down right now.”
He turns and carries me deeper into the woods. “I’ve considered your proposal and found it catastrophically stupid. So no.”
“Tristan, you’re an asshole.”
“Bianca, you’re the love of my life.”
I throw my head back and hit bone. He swears, his grip loosening for half a second before both arms lock around me again.
“Did you headbutt me, you little gremlin?”
“Put me down and I’ll demonstrate all the ways I can hurt you.”
His laugh comes out breathless. “Your commitment to terrible strategy remains one of your more endearing qualities.”
“I will gut you, Tristan Barrett.”
“After we reach the car. I don’t want to die before I get my first real taste of freedom in my twenties.”
I kick until my muscles shake but it doesn’t deter him a bit. Weller clears the path while Freddie stays beside Tristan, and together they carry me farther from Owen. My eyes sting and blur, which is absolutely fucking unacceptable. I bite the inside of my cheek until blood fills my mouth.
The first loud pop punches through the forest.
I hold my breath. A second boom follows, then three cracks tumble over one another as red and green light flares between the trees. It goes on and on.
Freddie laughs, and the sound breaks in the middle. “He did it.”
Tristan sets me down and I’m immediately running for higher ground before my feet are fully under me. I need to see the house. I need to see Owen.
We climb until the trees open around a rocky ledge. Whitney’s mansion burns below, orange racing behind curtains and along the roof while fireworks blast through windows. I search every strip of lawn I can see and find no large, furious man.
Freddie takes my hand. His palm is cold despite the heat climbing the slope. “Give him another minute. He’s like a cat. Nine lives and all that.”
“His shoulder still isn’t fully healed from the gunshot wound.” My breath has shortened until the words come out clipped and ugly. “We go back to the edge of the lawn. We’re not fucking leaving him behind. We’re not.”
Weller studies the paths below us with both hands curled at his sides. He wants to go too. That is the only reason I can stand hearing him say, “We wait two minutes. Then I’ll go find him.”
The house has become the largest bonfire I have ever seen. Glass bursts outward. Part of the roof folds into the flames.
If he is still inside -
Brush snaps below the ledge.
I spin so fast my foot slips on the rock.
Someone barrels uphill through the undergrowth like an enraged bear, then Owen breaks between two pines with soot across his face and a savage grin that makes my knees threaten mutiny.
His right arm is tucked close to his side until he sees me. Then both hands reach for me.
I skid down the last few feet toward him.
“Followed your scent, Princess.” He is breathing hard, sweating, a feral look in his eye. “It’s strong.”
I hit his chest with both fists. “You asshole. I was worried to death.”
He lifts me. My legs lock around his waist, my hands fist in his hair, and I kiss him like I can crawl inside him. He tastes like smoke. His hands crush the backs of my thighs, and the heat is suddenly there with us, coiling low between my hips while his scent floods my head.
“I thought you—” The words tear on the way out. I bite them off. “Don’t ever?—”
“Can’t get rid of me that easily.”
His pupils swallow his eyes. Slick runs hot between my thighs when his scent tangles with mine, and my hips roll against the hard ridge behind his zipper before either of us decides they should.
“Fuck, you smell?—”
I reach for him.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tristan’s voice cuts clean through the haze. He stops beside us, blood bright beneath one nostril from my headbutt. “You know in movies when inevitably two idiots stop to kiss or fuck or do something epically stupid and then die?”
Owen lets out a low rumble without loosening his grip.
“Car first,” Tristan says, with a tinge of alpha command in it. He’s never done that before. “We need to get rid of the collars and your tracker, evade the cops, then you two can make bad decisions. In that order.”
The words reach me, unfortunately.
“What car?”
“Winston left one at the park. Ezra has a place north.”
“Where?”
“Not here, Bianca.” He glances toward the shouting below. “Move your asses before Owen mounts you in the dirt and we end up back where we started.”
Owen sets me down slowly, and his hands linger. His eyes promise everything his body can’t deliver yet.
It takes twenty minutes to reach the park. Familiar trails twist beneath my feet, places we used to come as kids. Winston’s car waits where he said. Weller finds the key. Inside are water, clothes, cash, blankets, a first-aid kit, and sealed prepaid phones.
We pull out with the headlights off until the trees give us cover, then Weller guides Owen toward the back roads out of town. I sink into the seat between Tristan and Weller. Cool leather touches the cut at my neck.
Sirens rise in the distance and move away from us.
We’re free, or something like that.
I look around the car. “Who wants to cut this tracker out of me?”