Crossfire (Cross Duet #1)

33. GRAYSON

33

GRAYSON

By some damn miracle, we managed to make it all the way to my penthouse building without incident.

That was step one.

Step two would be getting this bound woman up into said penthouse without anyone seeing or hearing her scream.

We had three things working for us and two things working against us.

In our favor, we had the benefit that it was the middle of the night, the seclusion of an underground parking garage, and access to a private elevator that opened directly into my penthouse. An elevator that my high-end luxury price tag had the perk of not stopping at any other floors once I initiated the penthouse level.

But there were two particularly important variables that might work against us. Luck that someone, no matter how careful we were, might spot two grown men carrying a woman who was bound and gagged. And second, and most importantly, Ivy’s unpredictability.

I knew it was just a matter of time before she would make her move, and the million-dollar question was, when would she do it?

The parking garage was completely silent in the dead of night, a warning that our every sound could be the thread that unraveled our fate—our steps muffled only slightly by the fluorescent lights that hummed overhead. Their glow illuminated dozens of cars parked nearby, all of them a silent witness to what was about to happen. The cold air’s icy fingers crept under my wet clothes, prickling my skin and lungs with every breath.

And then most complicated of all were the security cameras positioned to protect the high-end clients of this luxury condo complex. I couldn’t ask Seth to deactivate them, not without tipping him off on what was happening. Instead, I needed a workaround.

“Stay here,” I said to Hunter, who’d I instructed to park in one of the few spaces unprotected by the cameras’ lenses.

I knew about the cameras’ blind spots because when I moved in here, the security guards had warned me about it, wanting to protect their penthouse guest from getting his car stolen.

Turns out, it would serve a much better purpose.

It took me a few minutes to go up to my penthouse alone and return with a large suitcase and a second mask.

If the absolute worst-case scenario happened and they did a thorough investigation of the security footage later, they might pick up the plates of Hunter’s car, but I wasn’t going to make it any easier for them to identify my brother. Or me.

With our masks securely on, we scanned the parking garage again as I rolled the suitcase to the back of the vehicle, opened the trunk, and braced myself in case she’d somehow freed herself from her bindings.

Ivy looked up at me, a wild mix of anger trying to mask her fear.

“If you make one sound…” I warned.

Putting her into the suitcase was trickier than I thought; it was complicated with the position of her arms and bursts of defiance, but we made it work, ensuring one segment closer to her nose had a gap for air.

Walking calmly, we ambled to the safety of the elevator with both the large suitcase and Ivy’s travel bag.

It wasn’t until the elevator doors closed that I took my first relieved breath. My second came when it opened into my penthouse.

Unsure where else to put her, I brought her into the sanctuary of my bedroom—a vast space with twelve-foot ceilings that could easily be large enough for a living room. I kept it meticulously organized with a dresser along the far wall and one lone picture of the city above it.

The heart of the room was dominated by a king-size bed, covered in sleek black bedding that contrasted starkly against the light-gray walls. This was where I put Ivy after removing her from the suitcase, and then with a simple press of a button, I initiated the closure of the blinds, erasing the panoramic view framed by the two floor-to-ceiling windows that anchored the corner of the room.

The mechanism hummed softly as Ivy shifted on the bedding, watching the glow of the city’s lights black out, entrapping her in what would become her jail cell.

Luckily, Ivy was smart enough to remain quiet and calm. She must’ve known that I was serious, that I would knock her out if she forced me to. Maybe she was even biding her time, waiting for me to leave before she would make another move, this time against Hunter. And while Hunter was physically strong enough to overpower her, she was well trained.

“I’m going to tie her to the bed frame,” I decided.

“What?” Hunter balked.

“She’s a fighter. I don’t want to put you in the position of having to wrestle her down.”

Hunter glared at me. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”