Fifteen.
Come on, Reggie.
Maybe she should call Tony. It wouldn’t be much longer before he arrived. There was a chance that Luke and his men had also gained speed.
With shaking hands, she reached into her purse and dug around its contents without dropping her line of sight. Just as her fingers closed around the phone, the piercing sound came. Booming through the gates.
BANG!
Fuck.
She ripped open the door.
Chapter 27
Whatever you do, don’t open the door.
The eerie silence of the street besieged her as soon as she stepped down, the guard’s warning ringing in her ears. There was not a soul in sight. No sign of where the bang had come from. But the scent of danger lingered heavily in the air.
It made her want to crawl back into the car.
She couldn’t, though. There was no way she could stay inside after hearing that. She may not have ever fired one, but the sound of a gunshot was unmistakable.
If everything was fine, Reggie would have texted her by now. He had parked just behind the house. It wouldn’t take him this long to get the all-clear unless things were, in fact, not all clear.
What if they’d shot him?
Or Gio?
Her legs moved unsteadily in the direction Reggie had veered off in, throwing an uncertain glance back at the car. There was a chance she wouldn’t be able to do much. She had no combat training or muscle power. But there was a chance, however minuscule, that she could do something–distract or stall–until help arrived.
Either way, she couldn’t just hide here. If something happened to Gio, she wouldn’t be able to live with it.
That certainty drove her forward, inching slowly, slowly until one of the rear gates came into view. Her large eyes darted around the steel frame and the surrounding hedges. Reggie had said there were no cameras by their parking spot. But surely, there would be some here by the gates? She couldn’t detect them, though.
Craning her neck slightly forward, Ana peered into the grounds. There was no one. The gates were locked, but no guards were stationed there. All the windows on this side of the house also appeared to be shut.
Just then, one of the drapes fluttered.
On high alert, she tensed.
Had someone spotted her?
With her gaze fixed on the window, she almost missed the movement in her periphery. A shadow shifted ever so slightly forward, toward her. By the time she noticed it, however, it was too late.
She froze in place. Eyes flared in terror as a large man came into view behind the gates.
“Did you want to come in, Miss Ana?” he asked coolly.
One of her aunt’s guards. She’d seen him a few times before, patrolling the gates with a somber look on his face. Even today, he regarded her impassively, without a hint of strain.
Ana wavered. He was acting like it was any other day at the house. Her eyes dropped to the large gun in his holster. “I was just waiting for my bodyguard to wrap up safety checks. Did he finish them already?” She smiled unsteadily.
“Yes.” He didn’t miss a beat. “You can come in, and we’ll let him know you’re here.”
No way was Reggie just waiting inside.
Not without giving her the all-clear.