Page 39 of Scarlet Secrets

The woman. She might have used the keypad to open the door, but she also used the key. And locked it with the key. Maybe…

My heart beats even faster, harder as I set the glass down, rising on shaking feet. I cross to the door, but it’s locked. However, the flat part of the keypad that had a discreet light on it earlier is now dull. Maybe… maybe she just locked it and took the key. If so, then I could try one of my hairpins.

Tom and I used to do this when we were younger, pretend we were spies and break in and out of the doors inside our home.

I try not to shake as I listen at the lock, but I don’t hear anyone at all.

The longer I stand here, stay here, the further from seeing Sasha I get. Kara will be worried, and he has never been awayfrom me. And if she calls the cops, then it might get on the news, especially with the shootout at the wedding. What if I become a person of interest since I’m missing and they mention Sasha?

Demyan would find out and?—

I’m spiraling and I have to stop. I breathe in deep and pull out a hairpin, straightening it.

It takes me precious minutes to remember how to do it. And it takes minutes more to get it to work. But finally, it clicks and my lungs freeze as I try the door.

It swings open.

With shallow breaths, I rush to the bathroom and turn on the shower, then I shut that door. It’s far-fetched, but I’m desperate to buy even seconds. I rush back to the door and slip out into the hall.

No one’s about. But I’m on the third floor and I need to get down to the first. I start to the stairs, but a voice rises from the floor below. Whoever he is speaks Russian, and I scurry back into the shadows. Of course I can’t go that way, and from the other voices that float, the mansion’s far from empty.

Except up here, where I’m trapped. What am I thinking? The grounds are teeming with armed guards, too.

A stair creaks and I dart into a darkened room, knocking into something, and I just catch what feels like a vase before it hits the ground. I close my eyes, willing my pulse to calm and my breathing to still.

Whoever it was must have climbed from the foyer to the second floor. I clench my stockinged toes on the floorboards.

Okay, these old mansions always have some kind of back staircase for servants. I think.

I poke my head out and start to walk the moment the coast is clear, and it’s not until I turn into another room, a pool of silvery moonlight calling to me, that I realize I havethe vase. I carefully set it down in the room and look around. It’s a beautiful library, a place I’d love to spend time in if I wasn’t a prisoner, but I hurry to the window and look down. I must be at the back of the mansion because there are gardens and trees and bushes and I can see a partial fence. If I can get there, maybe I’ll have a chance…

With that thought firmly in my head, I set out again, and I go from room to room, peering in those that are open, and after one that creaked when I opened it, I pass all the closed doors.

I almost miss it, the curve of a wooden banister at the back, past a guest bathroom. The stairs are steep, uneven, and plain. I don’t have a choice. I make my way down, pausing and shifting every time one starts to creak, but I find the right way, the edges of the stairs. At the landing on the second floor, I pause as two men argue just out of view, but I can’t stand here forever. The longer I’m here, the lower my chances of escape are. So I dart across the opening to continue down.

I’m almost at the bottom of the stairs where a door closes off the rest of the place. I reach to open it when someone bangs against it. More Russian. Some laughter. And then the voices move off.

Shit. I must be close to the epicenter.

Nerves screaming, my mind in freefall because how the fuck am I going to get out of here in one piece, I slowly open the door.

It’s an annex kitchen, like a casual room to eat, drink, hang out in, probably for staff, and just through the door ahead, I can see three men talking. A fourth is farther along, looking at his phone, frowning. I look in the opposite direction. A larder.

Now or never.

And it’s got to be now.

I move.

Hurrying as fast as I can silently go, first to the larder, where I figure I can hide before I search for the door.

It’s cool in here, and I look to the other side. The door is open, the smell of cigarette smoke strong.

Shit. Is someone there?

My insides try to crawl inside themselves, but I make myself stay where I am and breathe. The smoke’s still strong, but it’s not coming in waves. The smoker isn’t smoking; maybe they’re back in here or moved on.

Like my feet aren’t mine, they move to the door, and I slip through, pressing against the wall, a light pooling down over me. A cricket sings, and I can’t move. I’m exposed, I know it, but moving is…

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