Images of what she’d witnessed in the club assailed her, followed by the leader shouting her name and what Finn had just done on that roof.
She took a deep breath, eased down as far as she could. On a gasp, her legs sailed free, swinging from side to side. She yelped, but Finn was right there above her, urging her on in a voice that was oddly gentle compared to the fury he’d just unleashed. “This is a piece of cake. You got it. That’s it, Slim. Okay, now, just drop.”
Her pulse roared in her ears. Just drop? He made it sound so easy. She hated heights, always had. With one quick prayer she let go of the ladder and was airborne for only a split second before her feet slammed into the hard earth, jarring her legs. Her knees buckled, went out from under her. She landed with a crack on her ass. Pain spiraled up her spine.
“You okay?” he called.
She winced, wiped the dirt off her hands. “Great. Never better. I’m—”
He was at her side in a flash, pulling up on her arm. “We have to keep moving.”
“Hold on a minute, would you? I—”
Voices echoed on the roof. Instead of heading around the side of the building toward where her driver was parked, Finn dragged her up the hillside and into the dark trees and thick underbrush.
“Wait,” she said. “We—”
“We’re not taking any chances.” He didn’t slow even a second to let her breathe. Vines and twigs scraped at her arms and legs. “This hill drops over into a residential area.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I pay attention.”
She pulled on his arm, stopping him, dirt and twigs and things she couldn’t see digging into the soles of her feet. “I’m not wearing any shoes!”
He stopped, glanced down at her bare feet, then swore just before grabbing her around the waist and tossing her over his shoulder.
“Tierney!”
“Keep it down, Slim. We’ll move faster this way.”
“But the car—”
“Is either not there or filled with people I’m pretty sure you don’t want to meet up close and personal. Now stop wiggling.”
She didn’t like this situation—not with her ass sticking straight up in the air, barely covered by the miniskirt she’d worn tonight—but he was right. They did move faster. Before she knew it they were at the top of the hill, thick with palms and deciduous trees she couldn’t name, and he was already traversing the other side. Far below she could see the lights of Acapulco Bay. When she pushed her hands against his back and eased up to look in front of them, she saw the dark hillside indeed dropped into what looked like a heavily treed residential area.
He put distance between them and the club faster than seemed possible. He was a man who didn’t notice he should need a machete to get through this damn forest. Lauren couldn’t tell if anyone was following them. All she could hear was Finn’s heavy breathing, the scrape of vines and tree limbs against skin and clothing, and her racing pulse.
He dropped her to her feet in the shadows of several large palms. Soft dirt squished between her toes, moonlight filtered from the sky. Across an expanse of grass, a dark shape that looked like a Mediterranean-style house sat silent in the warm nigh.
“What are we—?”
“There,” he whispered, pointing past the end of the house. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
She didn’t have a clue to what he’d spotted. Couldn’t see anything more than large, looming shapes. And the way he kept cutting her off before she could finish a thought was really grating on her nerves.
His hand wrapped around hers and he pulled her into the yard. They made it halfway across the grass when voices echoed from the trees where they’d just been.
“Shit,” Finn muttered. “Hustle.”
He pulled hard on her arm. Her heart rate kicked up again. Seconds later, he tugged her to a stop on the other side of the garage next to what she now realized was an old rusted-out Jeep.
He tried the door. It swung open. With a muttered “yes,” he dropped into the seat, leaned down and reached under the steering column, pulling out a handful of wires from under the dashboard.
“Oh, my God,” Lauren whispered, his intent registering. “You’re going to steal this thing, aren’t you?”
Finn didn’t answer. Instead, he used his fingernails to strip the wires, tapped them together until a spark lit up the darkness and the engine roared to life.