Page 99 of Risky Obsession

My heart hammered in my chest.

Kane tugged Gunter’s bow tie from around his neck and stuffed it into Gunter’s mouth, cutting off his cries.

Oh jeez. We’re both going to hell.

I swung my leg over the windowsill and the bricks scraped against my palms as I lowered to the ledge, making sure my skirt didn’t catch on the rough surface.This ledge better lead to another window.

Kane followed behind me, his long legs reaching the ledge easier than mine.

“What do we do now?” I blurted.

“Jump,” he said.

CHAPTER 19

Kane

“Are you fucking crazy?” Tory’s eyes flared at me as she shifted to the left. “I am not jumping into that water.”

“It’s our only escape.” The wind clawed at my face as we balanced on the narrow ledge with our backs pressed against the cold stone castle wall. Twenty feet directly below us, the moat was as brown as gravy.

Shouts from inside the castle echoed behind us and panic burned through me like a lit stick of dynamite. We were cornered and exposed. If we didn’t move now, we were fucked.

“Can you swim?” I asked.

She adjusted the strap on her clutch so it wasn’t near her neck and shuffled another couple of feet sideways. “Yes, but I am not jumping from here.”

“It’s just water. We’ll make it.”

“I’ll drown in this massive skirt. And it’ll be fucking cold. Our limbs won’t move.”

“I’ll help you. We can do it.”

“No.” She glared at me. “There has to be another way.”

“Tory, any second now, some bastard is going to look out the window we escaped through and?—”

“What about your maps? Are they in your pocket?”

My mind skidded to a halt.

“Are you willing to risk them?”

Shit! The maps would be ruined if they became wet. “You’re right. Okay, keep moving. Maybe there’s an open window up ahead.”

“Hopefully.” Her wide, darting eyes betrayed the calm in her voice.

As we inched along, a cool breeze whipped around us like icy tentacles, and Tory’s skirt billowed around her legs in a parachute.

Peering over Tory’s head, I searched the sheer stone wall, desperate for an escape route. About ten feet ahead, a cable ran from the castle wall across the moat to the floodlights in the temporary car parking paddock.

“Look, there!” I pointed at the cable. “We can use that to get across.”

“Are you insane?” Tory hissed, her gaze following the line across to the other side. “We’ll never make it!”

Another shout rang out from the castle.

“It’s our only choice. Quick, get up to it.” I shuffled closer to her, giving her no choice but to keep moving.