You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(12)

Or she could get the hell out while the getting was good. She should remember how to do this. The whole first fifteen years of her life were about survival and then she’d had respites of time. The year with McKay-Taggart hadn’t been reality. This was reality.

She turned to her right and leapt over the balcony wall, adrenaline pumping through her system like a freight train. Immediately to her right was the fourth floor balcony suite. She threw her arms out, almost missing it.

“Goddamn it!” she heard Taggart yelling.

But she couldn’t think about him right now. She barely caught the edge of the balcony, her knees smashing into the railing. No time to think about pain. She let it go, focusing on one thing only. She pulled herself up and threw one of her throbbing legs over the railing, making it to the floor. Without a second to breathe, she was on her feet again and happy that the hotel believed in French doors. She kicked with all her might right in the middle, where the laws of physics were on her side. The door slammed open and she ran through paying absolutely no attention to the man and woman who were probably really f*cking shocked to have their midday tryst interrupted by an intruder.

She ignored them, the door to the hallway her only goal. There were three men who would be following her, but she had to think about Simon and Jesse, too. They wouldn’t stay on the sidelines, and the McKay-Taggart group believed in communications. Taggart would have already told his whole team that she was on the move. She needed to go out the back or find a hidey-hole. She needed to get to the street. She could lose herself on the street, hop on the train, and disappear into the city.

Her mind moved a hundred miles an hour as she slammed out of the suite and into the hallway. She had no doubt one of them would be hard on her ass. She sprinted down the hall to her right because it made more sense to go to her left. The elevators were to her left, but she was looking for the stairs at the far end of the hotel.

She took a turn, but she could hear someone behind her. There was no way to mask the sound of feet beating against the floor at a dead run.

She had to be faster. She turned on the heat, forgetting about the ache, neglecting the pain. It was easy to forget the physical, but the sight of Jesse putting his arms wide and yelling for her to take him out wouldn’t go away. She ran without thought to the way her lungs burned.

She could hear the man behind her getting closer. The door to the stairs was ahead. She saw it. She could make it. Distraction. It was what she needed. She hit the door and then stopped, swiveling on her bare feet. She held the door slightly open, waiting for the inevitable.

Human nature was her friend. When barreling through a door, almost no one used his or her bodies to slam a door open. It was normal and natural for a hand to press through first, and she used it to her advantage. The minute she saw that hand start to slip through the door in an attempt to push it open, she slammed her body weight against it and caught the arm with a hard crunch. She was rewarded with a shout and a moan, but she doubted she’d done more than bruise him.

“Goddamn it, Phoebe!”

She took off again. That hadn’t been Taggart. She recognized Jake Dean’s low growl and knew he wouldn’t let a little pain stop him. She couldn’t stay in the stairwell. She needed cover and she wasn’t going to get it here.

She flew out the door that led to the fourth floor and immediately knew she’d gotten lucky. Phoebe had been in the business long enough to know skill wasn’t enough. She needed luck and the ability to see the possibility of that big cleaning cart in front of her. Most people would see an obstacle to be avoided, but Phoebe saw something more. She saw sweet, sweet chaos.

As Dean bounded out of the stairwell, she tipped over the cart, spraying the entire hall with toilet paper rolls, fresh towels, and mini toiletries.

But what was a little chaos when she could make big chaos?

“Help! Help! Please don’t let him kill me!” Phoebe screamed as she ran past the shocked maid. “He’s trying to kill me.”

“Well, I wasn’t before!” Dean yelled as he tried to maneuver through the ruin.

Phoebe ran even as doors opened and she could hear people calling for security and the police.

Yes, she might have to deal with them, but she suspected it would be far easier to get away from a couple of cops than it would be to slip past Taggart and his boys.

“We’re about to have guests,” she heard Dean say.

She could practically hear Taggart cursing her name.

An elevator opened in front of her.

“Hurry!” a masculine voice cried out.

Thank god for helpful bystanders. She took off and managed to make it into the elevator right before the doors closed.

She dragged air into her lungs, her body against the back of the elevator. She felt it start to move. “Thank you so much. My boyfriend went a little psychotic.” She realized something was wrong. Why were they going up instead of down?

“Oh, sweetie, that’s no way to talk about Jake. He’s not psychotic. He’s just grumpy most of the time,” Adam Miles said with a grin on his face. He also had a needle in his hand. “Now, do you want to go the hard way or the easy way? Seriously, you should try the easy way. This is some good shit and that way you don’t have to listen to Jake yelling about you breaking his arm or deal with Ian’s really poor driving. The man has road rage. Now come to Papa and we’ll have you out in no time at all.”