Page 73 of Salvatore

17

SALVATORE

I keep my gaze upward,not sadistic enough to look down as I jump back onto the neighboring balcony, then enter the dark empty bedroom adjacent to Ivy’s makeshift cell.

Matthew pushes from his seated position on the floor. “Where is she?”

“What happened?” Remy follows.

“We need to find another way to get her out.” I pull my phone from my pants pocket and text Bishop an update. “She’s too scared to jump.”

“That’s surprising,” Remy drawls. “Who wouldn’t want to jump from balcony to balcony seventeen stories above ground level?”

I glare at him and shove my cell back in my pants pocket. “I didn’t hear you come up with a better alternative.”

“That’s because there isn’t one.” Matthew locks eyes with me, clearly trying to reiterate his statement with a pointed stare. “The balcony is the only way. We can’t make waves with this. Lorenzo will fucking kill us if the cartel finds out we’re responsible.”

Fuck Lorenzo. He’s gone soft.

He’s been pussyfooting around Gabriel and his band of merry sex traffickers since we arrived in Baltimore. If my uncle is still committed to me taking the helm then a fucking pedestal of soft-cock management isn’t how my shit is going to roll.

But Remy has Olivia now, and Matthew has Layla and a step-kid, so they don’t want to risk their lives and futures foryada, yada, yada.

My brothers have become as fucking flaccid as Lorenzo. Thus the basis for the bandanas, the untraceable stolen getaway car, and the questionable plan to escape via a death-defying height.

“We could sedate her and cart her across the balconies somehow,” Matthew suggests. “She wouldn’t even need to know what’s going on.”

“Why didn’t I think of that.” Remy holds up an imaginary drink. “Here, Ivy, have this random beverage I prepared earlier. It’s full of goodie yum-yums and not suspicious at all.”

Matthew glowers. “Either brainstorm a helpful suggestion of your own or shut the fuck up.”

“Helpful as in problematic and dumb as shit, like yours? Or…” He raises his brows in question.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and pace the carpeted floor, the thud of Latin music from next door giving me a goddamn headache.

“Given the noise, why don’t we just cut a hole through the wall so she can step right through?” Remy asks.

“Construction work is louder than that, fuck-stain.” Matthew starts toward the balcony door. “Let me go over there and put in more of an effort to convince her to jump.”

“No.” I hold out an arm, blocking his path. “She said she can’t, so she’s not.”

He stares at me, scrutinizing through the shadows. “You’re awfully amenable to a woman you barely know.”

I clench my jaw. “No. I just don’t want you fucking this up. We’ve already wasted enough of my time.”

“We could create a bridge of some sort.” Remy stalks to the bedroom door, grabs the edge of the wood in one hand, then palms the middle, as if testing it for strength. “We could unscrew this from the hinges.”

“That isn’t hard wood.” Matthew turns on his heel to join him. “My guess is it’s hollow core. Would it even hold her weight?”

“It wouldn’t need to for more than a few seconds.” Remy swings the door back and forth. “Two steps is all she needs.”

Two risky fucking steps.

“Do either of you have a screwdriver?” Matthew claims the door off our brother and does the same pressure test in the middle of the wood, as if he’s a master carpenter who’s spent his life in the company of fine lumber.

“Yeah.” Remy steps back and digs into his pants pocket. “Just give me a sec. I always have one of those stored up my ass for special occasions like these.”

Matthew glares over his shoulder. “‘No’ would’ve sufficed.”

---