“Get dressed. It won't take me long to go to the gym and come back to get you.”
They dressed in silence, and when he was ready, he paused to kiss her one last time before punching in the code and walking out the door. The gym was on this level, so he strolled down to it, grateful that the building was quiet. Inside, he grabbed a duffel bag and began to fill it with a few weights.
This plan was flimsy at best, but what else did he have?
“Didn't get enough in the ring?” a voice snickered from behind him, and Mateo turned to find Josh standing in the gym’s doorway.
“Griffin shifted me to boxing, need to get in shape,” he muttered in return, throwing in a few more weights before zipping up the duffle bag.
“Can't believe you threw away a good thing here for a woman.” Josh sneered. He was the youngest of the Azure team, and the newest member. Prone to making mistakes and being sloppy with his work and his attitude.
“They shouldn’t have gone after her, she was mine, and you know I don’t share,” he said, hefting the heavy bag onto his shoulder.
“Where are you going with those?”
“Home,” he said simply.
Without another word, he strode out of the gym, his bruised and battered body protesting carrying the heavy weights, but he didn't care. In a few minutes, he was going to be driving out of here with his girl, and that was all that mattered.
Feeling Josh’s eyes on him as he strolled out, Mateo had to force himself not to run. Something felt off, but he didn't have the luxury of time to figure out what might be making him feel uneasy about the brief interaction with Josh.
Punching in the code to Ally’s room, he found her waiting for him. She’d pulled the covers back on the bed, ready for them to put the weights in.
“Hurry,” he urged as he knelt and unzipped the bag.
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
Together, they carried the weights to the bed. Well, he carried ninety percent of them, but Ally helped. Then they tucked the blanket up so that it kind of looked like a person was under it if you only glanced quickly.
Then Ally scrunched her body into the fetal position inside the duffel bag, and he zippered her up. There were things he wanted to say, assurances he wanted to give, but the unease was growing, and he just wanted to get the hell out of here.
Once again hefting up the bag, he headed out into the hall. There might not be cameras in Ally’s room, but there were out here, so he knew he would have been spotted going back into her room and then leaving again almost immediately. All he could do was hope that if anyone was watching the camera feeds, they would just assume he was telling her goodbye before leaving.
No one stopped him as he walked into the garage and snagged the first set of keys his fingers brushed against. Muscles screaming in protest at carrying Ally’s weight in this awkward position, Mateo just gritted his teeth and headed for the SUV.
After unlocking it, he set the bag on the front passenger seat and quickly rounded the car, jumping in the driver’s seat and turning on the engine. “Stay in there until we’re on the street,” he warned her as he threw the car in reverse and began to drive out of the large garage.
“Is anyone coming?” Ally asked, voice muffled from inside the bag.
“No.” But anot yethovered at the back of his mind.
This felt too easy, and he kept glancing all around him, expecting someone to jump out at any second.
But no one did.
When they were two streets away, he told Ally she could climb out, and she awkwardly managed to do so while he kept driving. They made it across town to where he’d parked a getaway vehicle in the event that he’d ever need one. Not that he could have envisioned escaping with the woman he loved when he first parked it here.
It wasn't until they were both in the new vehicle, with him holding a phone to his ear, listening to the dial tone as he waited for Falcon to pick up, that he spotted it. A black car following too closely behind them. He couldn’t see the driver’s shadowed face, but he didn't need to. He’d memorized all of Azure’s license plate numbers, and the car after them belonged to the people they were running from.
Chapter
Twenty-Two
August 23rd
12:42 A.M.