Page 50 of Stolen Temptation

How did they plan to explain the age discrepancy to whoever bought her? Maybe I overlooked the part of the description that identified her as a fake, much younger Libertas. Not that the average auction guest would give two shits about forgeries. They only care about bringing in money.

If there’s no chatter about her on the dark web, all that means is that they managed to cover up her disappearance and control the bleed of online information.

That leads me to believe the De Lucas are likely moving through the shadows, same as I am, analyzing the guests who were in attendance that night and all the security camera footage to find out what happened to Kiara.

And it won’t take them long to figure out she was with me.

The sun’s gone by the time I power down for the day. I should go to sleep, but part of me wants to check in on Kiara.

Another part of me doesn’t. I don’t want to look her in the eye knowing that Finn is planning to use her in this fight against the De Lucas.

Restlessness devours me. For a while, I just pace the office on my own, trying to comb my tangled thoughts into braids of logical, connected strands of information.

But nothing works. I could head to Madden. Burying myself in a warm body might relax me enough to sleep.

The idea holds no appeal. The only woman I want to bury myself in right now is down the hall. Our temporary prisoner. Someone I need to keep my hands off.

Finally, I break down and consider a compromise.

Instead of going to bed like I should, I pull up the CCTV feed for the areas in and around Kiara’s bedroom. Outside her room, the guard is fast asleep, leaning against the door. I can tell he’s dozing by the drift in his skull.

Moron.Quickly, I pull up the feed from the two cameras inside the room.

The bed is empty. That’s because our little painter is standing by the window, one leg over the ledge.

Like a spy in an action flick, she pulls her other leg over, too, and begins to climb down.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Toggling to the outdoor CCTV feeds, I watch her literally scale the side of the building like fucking Spider-Man. Her feet and hands search the bricks for purchase as she steadily descends.

I was wrong about her. She’s not a forger.

She’s an escape artist.

My pulse skyrockets as I spring to my feet. “Ballsy, ridiculous woman. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

If she thinks I’ll just let her slip away into the night, she’d better think again. And if she falls and cracks open her skull? I’ll chase her into the afterlife just to strangle her.

Right now, she’s our prize.Myprize.Nothingandno oneis going to take her away before I’m ready.

Not Kiara. Not the De Lucas. Not even death herself.

After one last glance at the monitor, I launch out the door.

Time to teach my little painter a lesson.

Chapter 14

Kiara

Wind grazes my body. I resist the chill in the air, refusing to shiver.

One wrong move and it’sbye-bye, Kiara.

Digging my hands and feet into the crevices between bricks and window ledges, I call on all my past tree-climbing experience to scale this building in reverse, advancing myself one foothold at a time toward the earth below.

Withoutlooking down.