Thorne Princess(37)

Max was too wrapped up in his job to be nice to me. He seemed relieved when, shortly after Ransom disappeared, I went upstairs and roamed the lonely rooms of my mansion, trying to find something to do.

I never quite understood how lonely I was until Ransom got here. His imposed lockdown made me realize that without my nighttime outings, I barely even left the house at all.

Like a ghost, I wandered the rooms on the second floor, until Ransom’s was the only one left.

Don’t go in there. Don’t ask for trouble.

But trouble was a great cure for boredom, as any ditzy heiress could tell you, and I wanted to stir the pot a little. Besides—what else did I have to do? Max was anxiously sitting downstairs, checking the windows and doors every half hour like war was upon us.

I sauntered inside Ransom’s room, closing my eyes and inhaling him.

I liked that I was attracted to him. It felt safe, because I knew he would never try anything with me.

A scribbled note on his desk drew my attention. Was that the same note he took from me? The leaflet that made him change his behavior and become so protective of me?

I made my way to the note and picked it up. It didn’t look like the paper I found in the doorway the other day. No. This looked unmistakably like Ransom’s bold, long-stroked handwriting. An address. In downtown Los Angeles.

Let’s look for trouble.

For a long time now, I wanted to find out something interesting and intimate about my bodyguard.

He knew so much about me. It was only fair I had some information on him, right?

Shoving the note into my pocket, I grabbed my bag and denim jacket. Max was downstairs, and I knew two more men were patrolling the neighborhood. The so-called backup.

The security app on Ransom and Max’s phone was on, so if a door opened in the house—even a window—they’d know about it.

But they wouldn’t know about my bedroom balcony.

My bedroom balcony did not have a camera installed, which made it a blind spot. It had one, when I first moved in three years ago, but it fell a couple years ago, and I never got around to fixing it.

I’d done it before. Slipped out via my own balcony. A couple times when I accidentally locked myself inside the house, and another time when Keller was here and made me promise him I wouldn’t break my promise not to eat ice cream after midnight.

My hands and feet shook. Despite that, I slid down easily. Hopping over the balcony, firmly placing one foot over the gutter, then lowering myself until I was leaning against a garden statue.

I hopped down, cleaning mud and grass from my hands and knees. I peered into the house. Max was there, looking out the opposite window, his back to me.

Turning around, I slipped into my second favorite car, the Prius. It was parked outside the garage from the time NeNe had borrowed it to stealth from a Botox treatment undetected, so no app was going to ping.

The entire drive downtown, I kept staring at the note with the address. What could Ransom possibly be looking for in this part of town? It wasn’t seedy per se, but it wasn’t swanky, either.

Forty minutes later, I was at my destination. I parked in front of the address on the note. It was a Mexican bar. Small, loud, bursting with colors and music. The front patio was teeming with people drinking and laughing.

He’d gone drinking?

Slowly, grasping my clutch to my hip, I began moving through the thick crowd on the patio searching for his face. What was I expecting to see? Ransom on a date? How stupid. I didn’t even know the guy and I knew he wasn’t the dating type.

He wasn’t in the bar. He wasn’t in the seating area, either. It occurred to me that he may have tricked me, to see if I’d take the bait and follow him here.

I made my way out of the bar, the music shaking the ground beneath my feet. The street was still alive and buzzing. I decided to take a quick walk. Maybe he went somewhere nearby instead?

I knew I was getting myself into trouble. Worse still, I knew I was getting Max into hot water, too. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on me. But I’d wanted to see what Ransom was up to when he wasn’t at the house.

Passing by an alleyway full of industrial trashcans, I heard a noise.

“Aww.”

I stopped in my tracks, my ears perking, straining to hear more.

The muffled moans—like a small child crying—grew louder and more desperate. They were coming from the passageway.

When I was in college (for one semester, mind you), the sorority house director once told us if we found ourselves getting physically harassed or attacked, to scream “fire” instead of “rape”. Because fire was a collective problem, and people were more likely to rush to help you, while rape was something people didn’t want to witness or get involved in. And now hearing these voices…I couldn’t just turn around and risk the chance of not helping someone in need.

Well, I wasn’t one of those people.

I opened my small clutch, taking out the taser Keller got me for Christmas, and stepped deeper into the alleyway.

Immediately, two darkened silhouettes came into view. The woman was pressed against a red-bricked wall. Her cocktail dress was pushed up, her panties shoved down haphazardly to her knees. Her face glistened with tears. The man behind her pounded into her mercilessly. His fingers were shoved deep into her mouth, making her gag. His form was big, strong, wired with muscles.

I clutched the taser in my hand, getting ready to aim it at him as I gingerly stepped closer.