I crawled out of one of the windows facing the back garden and climbed the fence to one of the neighbor's yards with the help from a garden chair, and from there snuck my way out to the quiet streets.
Even though the house was technically still in London, it was in a well-to-do suburban area, so there wasn't much of the city's noise to disrupt the crisp autumn night.
I breathed in deeply, enjoying my first breath of freedom for what felt like an eternity. I briefly considered just running away tonight, but my passport was safely locked in a bank deposit box across town. I wouldn't be able to get to it before the morning, and by then the Steels would long since have noticed I was gone. I would never make it out of London. No, when I escaped for good, it would have to be a lot better planned.
I spent about twenty minutes walking through the neighborhood, so I was sure I could call a cab without the Steels-or worse, their enemies-getting notified. They might have their eyes on our house, but no one would bat an eyelid at a cab pulling up a mile or two away from our property.
As I walked past the big houses with their lush gardens and lit windows, I couldn't help but think about how happy I would have been to settle down in an area like this under different circumstances. It was the perfect place to raise children and live a quiet, comfortable life. Heck, I'd even spotted a few apple trees in our own garden. I could have been one of those mums who baked pies and had hot cider ready when her kids got home from school on a cold autumn day.
But that wasn't how my life had turned out, and I couldn't spend time crying about that. Not now. I had a few hours of precious freedom to look forward to, and damn it, I was going to enjoy them.
I pulled my phone out of the bag I'd grabbed before climbing out of the living room window and found the number for my favorite private hire cab company under my contacts. I gave my location, and the woman on the other end told me it'd be a ten minute wait.
I found a low fence in front of a house whose windows were dark and sat down to play on my phone while I waited. It was possibly because I was staring so intently at it that I didn't notice a black Porsche pulling up only two minutes later, until the driver stepped out.
The moment I spotted the leather-clad shoes waiting patiently on the pavement in front of me, every hair on my body stood on end. I snapped my gaze up, ready to scream for help if I needed to. Had one of the Steel's enemies seen me leave the house after all? It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness after the bright light of my phone's display, but when they did, I recognized the stranger's dark features. It still took me a few moments to place him.
His dark hair, square jaw, and starkly handsome face looked eerily familiar, and I realized with a start that he had to be related to Blaine. He'd been at the wedding, too, standing next to Blaine and the twin groomsmen at the alter. He had to be Blaine's brother.
"M-Marcus?" I stuttered, feeling my heart calm down a little now that I was reasonably sure I wasn't going to get kidnapped.
He nodded once and reached out a hand, clearly expecting me to take it.
I didn't. Instead, I frowned up at him. "Have you been following me?"
"No." He didn't take back his hand, instead letting it remain stretched out between us as a quiet command. "Your phone is tapped. I heard you order a cab. Was in the neighborhood anyway."
I blinked and pursed my lips. Of course my phone was tapped. Not like they'd let me have access to any unsupervised communication. "I take it you don't have anything better to do on a Friday night than listening in on your brother's new wife, then?"
He didn't respond-just looked at me with that same expressionless stare. It was beginning to be mildly unnerving.
"Look, I'm not going back to that house. Not yet." I crossed my arms over my chest and set my jaw. "And if you make me, I'm going to scream ‘rape' so loud your eardrums will burst."
One of Marcus' dark eyebrows quirked at my threat, probably because we both knew nothing I could do could stop any of the Steels from doing what they wanted with me.
"You need to come with me. Now." Though his voice was quiet and calm, the ring of command was unmistakable.
"Didn't you hear me? I'm not going back there. Your arsehole of a brother is out anyway, and until he asks me to come back, I'm not going."
"I will take you to my place," he said. "And I will let Blaine know where to come get you."
Something in his tone made it quite clear that this was the only deal I was going to get, and since it beat being hogtied and carried back before Blaine even realized I'd left, I relented. With a small sigh, I put my hand gingerly in his. "Fine, then."
The car ride to Marcus' place happened in complete silence. There was something dark and brooding about his presence that made my skin prickle with the sort of awareness one gets around a docile predator-alert, but not in full-blown panic mode. Not the most smalltalk-encouraging of moods.
He was different than Blaine in that way. Sure, Blaine had the "lethal predator" vibe down to a "T" when he wanted to, but his brother didn't put any effort into it. The looming threat I got from him was more subtle and took a while to really register, but once it did, it seemed to just roll off him in waves as if it was his natural aura.
From a psychological perspective, it was intriguing, but I found it a little hard to keep an academic distance seeing as I was trapped in a car with him. At least my ovaries weren't spazzing out like they did around Blaine.
Marcus drove us to us to an exclusive residential area in central London consisting of newer high rises made from what looked to be mainly steel and glass. He parked the Porsche in an underground basement and led me through the parking garage to a swanky looking elevator, where he proceeded to press the button for the top floor. Of course he had a penthouse.
"You're not much of a suburban kinda guy, huh?" I said with what I hoped wasn't too nervous a smile.
He glanced down at me, his expression as blank as ever, but didn't comment.
"I guess Blaine's not, either. I mean, I know he just moved into the house as well, but I can't really picture him living it up in a family home." I have no idea why I chose that strain of mindless conversation, but now that I was on it, I might as well run with it. The completely silent car ride had given me way too much time to soak in his oddly unnerving presence, so I figured a bit of small talk might help the situation.
Unfortunately for me, Marcus wasn't engaging. He kept quiet for the entire elevator ride while I chatted away about the house and the garden, motioning for me to step out of the elevator once the doors finally opened at the top floor.
Marcus' flat turned out to be as spectacular as Blaine's and my house, but for entirely different reasons. I stopped my chattering when he ushered me in the door to stare at the breathtaking view of London's skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows that covered the entire outer wall of the large, open-spaced living room-slash-dining room-slash kitchen we stepped into.
"This is amazing," I finally managed. I stepped all the way over to the windows and looked out. It felt like the entire city lay beneath my feet.
When I turned around, Marcus had placed a high-stemmed glass on the table and proceeded to fill it with a ruby-red wine. I raised my eyebrows in mild surprise when he held it out to me.
The large man leaned against the kitchen island next to where he'd placed the glass. An invitation to sit on the adjoining bar stool, I assumed. I gave him another hopefully not-too-nervous smile and walked back across the parquet flooring to sit where he'd indicated.
"Thank you." I took a sip from the glass, because it would have been rude not to. It felt expensive and smooth on my tongue, like thick silk. My next sip was bigger, and not from politeness.
He was watching me again, his expression as unreadable as ever.
I sighed and put the glass down. "You know, it's really unnerving when you do that."
His eyebrows rose a millimeter. I took it as a question.
"The silent staring. Or just the silence, to be honest. I think I'd prefer yelling, if this is your way of showing your disapproval."
"I offered to keep check on your phone because if my father sent someone to fetch you, you'd likely get a few bruises. I don't disapprove of you trying to escape. Blaine's a bastard."
"Oh." I looked up into his flint-colored eyes with some uncertainty. "Then … why didn't you just let me get in the cab?"
"Can't." Marcus looked down at the counter where he was tapping his fingers against the smooth marble. "He likes you too much."
"Uhh … " I blinked, and felt my eyebrows creep up as high on my forehead as they could go. "Who? Blaine? He said that?"
"No. Doesn't have to. We can tell."