Page 64 of Convict’s Game (Skeleton Crew #1)

C onvict

A thud hit my door. Another, then it burst open, and Kane shoulder-barged through.

I huffed a laugh. “Bad brother.”

“You’ve had weeks to come up with a nickname, and that’s all you’ve got?”

He advanced on my table, and I lifted my chained hands.

“Get me out of here and I’ll think up something better.” I paused. “That only applies if you’re here to rescue and not murder me.”

He brought out a dull metal tool from his pocket and didn’t meet my eyes. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll change my mind and leave ye here.”

He worked the cuffs.

I caught up from my surprise at seeing him. Of all the crew members I’d daydreamed breaking down my door while the cop tried every which way to recruit me, I hadn’t expected this man. “Why aren’t you at the Marchant meeting? Thought the vote was unmissable.”

“Long story. Mila can explain it when we get out.”

“She’s here?”

“Don’t ask me why. She seems to like ye.”

I swallowed and slumped back on the table, my heart pounding. “I’m going to marry the shit out of your sister. Just saying.”

Kane shuddered and released my hands. “Make sure there’s an open bar. My ‘I object’ speech will go down easier with whisky.”

The cuffs fell away. Climbing up, I shook out my limbs, winced, and added ‘saved by her brother’ to the list of things I’d never emotionally recover from.

I moved to the door, but Kane stopped me.

“Can’t go downstairs. We gassed it.”

“You knocked out Kenney. Wait, and Lovelyn?”

“Lovelyn needs plausible deniability, and I wasn’t about to haul your heavy arse through the streets wearing a gas mask.”

He approached the tall windows and peered out. I joined him. We were only one storey up, but there was nothing below us but an empty yard. Not a handhold on the plain brick.

“So we’re just going to jump?”

Kane shrugged and pulled on a skeleton crew bandanna, handing me another. “Unless ye learned to fly while in police custody?”

Despite myself, I laughed. “Let’s do it.”

The scramble over the windowsill was oddly reminiscent of how I’d met Mila. Except that was a thousand times more romantic than having her brother’s arse loom above me.

Taking care to keep my recently healed leg raised, I lowered to my fingertips then dropped to the concrete below. I hit the ground and rolled, bouncing back up with a quick sense check telling me I’d stuck the landing.

Kane thudded heavily in a crouch beside me, his fingertips touching the ground. He shoved me and flashed a grin. I shoved him back and crept to the wall and the thick metal gate that led on to the road.

A digi-lock secured the gate. I could scramble over it, but the height of the wall had obscured anything directly behind it from our window view.

Apparently, Kane had eyes on the street, as he listened to an earpiece I hadn’t noticed, then paused me. “There’s a cop sitting in her car outside, apparently on a phone call. We’re going to have to run for it. The crew will pick us up on the move. Keep up, lover boy.”

With two strides back for a run-up, Kane vaulted the wall. He was gone in a flash. I sucked in a breath and didn’t waste a second more, following him over.

He was already halfway across the road when I landed and ran.

A car door cracked open. “Hey!” a woman yelled.

The static of radio chatter chased us. I didn’t give a damn. I was free. I bolted down the streets of Leith as I probably had hundreds of times before, keeping Kane in my sights.

He ducked down an alley, pausing to be sure I saw him hop another wall, then we jumped fences in back gardens. We were taking a cut through in case we were pursued.

The further we ran, the closer we got to the crashing of waves, and I burst out the end of a lane directly into a crowd at the harbour.

Excitement was high, and all eyes were on some kind of operation in the docks. Kane grasped my arm and towed me, but I caught sight of what had drawn everyone’s attention. Across the water, a crane lifted the prow of a red-and-white boat.

The Eden was being resurrected.

Why that gave me a more sickened feeling than my imprisonment was anyone’s business.

We threaded through the throng and out onto Ocean Drive.

Next to where the Glass House used to sit, a vehicle waited, partially blocking the road. Arran’s car. I nearly cried. Kane almost threw me inside, slammed the door, and smacked his hand down on the frame with a shout for us to go.

Across the back seat, Mila reached for me, and I fell on her, Arran and Tyler giving relieved greetings while we sped the fuck out of town.

At last, I could breathe again.

Or pass the fuck out. That worked, too.