But you’re not going down. You just have to go across.
She’d found her escape path.
A thin ledge connected two balconies. The balcony in Drake’s apartment, and a balcony that waited about ten feet away. If she got to that other balcony, she could slip away and vanish into the casino.
If she got to that other balcony.
Lightning crackled across the sky, illuminating her deadly walk. Thunder rumbled.
And raindrops hit her.
She really had shit for luck.
***
“Oh, I forgot,” Noah said as he flashed Drake a hard smile. “You don’t love. Love is for fools like—”
“You.” Because he’d seen exactly how crazy Noah had become when he fell for Claire. Crazy and desperate. Obsessed.
Drake had no intention of becoming obsessed with anyone. “Just take Jasmine back to New York with you, okay? When Trace and I are done eliminating Case’s threat, you can stop playing guard.”
From outside, Drake heard the hard rumble of thunder.
“You guarded Claire for me…” Noah sighed. “So I guess I can return the favor.”
“Be warned, Jasmine is nothing like your Claire.” Noah’s wife Claire was sweet and charming, and when Drake had looked into her eyes once, he’d seen all the pain of her past. Claire had nearly been broken by the nightmare that had been her life.
Jasmine—Jasmine wasn’t broken in any way. She was wild, a firestorm, strong and ready to meet any challenge head on.
“Hell.” He rushed for his closed bedroom door as realization dawned. “That woman isn’t tired at all.”
He threw open the bedroom door. The room was empty.
That wasn’t even possible.
“Jasmine!”
“The doors to the balcony are open,” Trace said as he ran in behind Drake.
The doors were open—and rain poured in from those open doors.
“It’s storming,” Noah said, sounding lost. “Why would the woman go out in a storm?”
Drake leapt out onto the balcony. Lightning flashed overhead. He looked down—no Jasmine. She wasn’t lying, body twisted, on the pavement below.
Thank Christ.
He heard a faint gasp then, and his gaze shot up and to the left. Jasmine was there, about ten feet away from him, reaching out for the railing on the other side of an incredibly small ledge.
Drake stopped breathing as he stared at her.
“Oh, shit,” Noah whispered from behind him.
Her hand closed around the railing. Drake knew he should be rushing back through his apartment and around to that other balcony, but he couldn’t move, not until he was sure that she was safe.
Every muscle in his body had turned to stone.
Slowly, inch by inch, she climbed over the railing and onto that balcony. Her feet were bare, still bare, and when her toes touched down, he finally took a breath.
“Jasmine.” Her name was on that breath.
And even though his voice had been low, her head whipped up. Her gaze met his.
Then she turned and ran.
Chapter Ten
Adrenaline had her whole body quaking. Adrenaline and fear and oh, God, but she never wanted to do anything like that again.
Desperate times make for desperate women.
She had to get out of Drake’s sight. Get to Victor. End this nightmare before anyone else was hurt.
She yanked open the balcony door and found herself inside an office. A long conference table waited to the right. She ran past it and toward what she hoped would be an exit door. She had to find the stairs or an elevator and get—
“Going somewhere?”
Trace Weston lunged out of the darkness of that room. He stood between Jasmine and her precious exit door. And he was a definite immovable object. His head was cocked as he studied her.
She staggered to a stop.
“Unlike Drake, I didn’t stay around to see if you’d make it to the other side of that little ledge.” He took a step toward her. “I’m the one who’s been investigating you for the last few days, so I know just what you’re capable of doing. What you have done. I knew you’d dance right across that ledge.”
“Y-your wife is the dancer, not me.” Trace was married to an ex-prima ballerina, so that taunt just rolled right out of her mouth. This big, tough, scary guy had hooked up with a woman as delicate as fine china.
Maybe opposites really did attract.
She choked back her fear and said, “You have to get out of my way.”
Her lead time was dwindling fast. Drake would be running in there soon.
Trace looked genuinely confused. “Why would I want to do that? I don’t think Drake planned for you to disappear from his life.”
Her gaze flew to the door behind him. She only had seconds. “I’m going to hurt him.”
“How?”
“I’m not a woman to be trusted, but I think you already discovered that.” She inched toward him. “Please, I need to get out of the Masquerade. I have to go see Victor—”
“The FBI agent?”
She nodded quickly “He’s the only one who can stop this.”
His arms crossed over his chest. “You should have more faith in Drake.”
It wasn’t about faith. It was about what would happen. “I don’t want to hurt him,” she confessed. “So you have to get out of my way.”
He shook his head.
Her back teeth locked. She hadn’t made it across that scary-as-sin ledge to be blocked by this guy. Footsteps were pounding outside of the door. Drake—rushing after her.
“Why did you try to run?” Trace asked her. “We were making plans to fly you up to New York.”
“Oh, how wonderful,” she muttered. “Plans for my life. Thanks, but I’ve already got plans of my own.”
And since he wasn’t getting out of her way, Jasmine did the only thing that she could—she made a break for it. A fast, desperate run.
But Trace caught her before she’d taken more than three steps. His arms locked tightly around her, and he yanked her up against his chest.
“I don’t trust you, and, unlike Drake, I wasn’t taken in by your innocent eyes.”
Her eyes were innocent? Since when?
“You aren’t getting away,” he promised.
The door burst open. Drake stood there, chest heaving, eyes blazing.
“Not from any of us.” Trace’s whisper slid into her ear.
She heaved in his hold. The guy just tightened his grip, so she slammed down her heel. She hit his foot, then his shin, then anything she could find.
“Stop it!” Drake yanked her out of Trace’s arms. “What the hell were you thinking? You could have died out there.”