She’s good at keeping quiet. Whether she’s as skilled at maneuvering through the compound once we arrive is another matter entirely.
“The space behind the manor is somewhat wooded,” I explain as we approach, “that’s why we’re moving around the edge of the grounds. Any other route, and they’ll spot us from a mile away. We’re only here to scope the place out tonight.”
“We aren’t rescuing Maggie?” she whispers, incredulous.
“If we go in blind, we’ll be killed within minutes,” I say. “I spent days, sometimes weeks learning the patterns of my targets and their guards when I carried out my work for the Bratva. I consider this a rush job.”
“And if they spot us?” she whispers back after a tense pause.
“Keep moving, don’t worry about me. If your legs can carry you as fast as I saw earlier, you won’t have trouble outmaneuvering them. Disappear into the city and take a cab to drive around for a while, then head to your old university dorm once you’re sure nobody is tailing you. I’ll wait for you there.”
“If we get caught,” she clarifies.
“If we get caught,” I affirm.
Once we’re up to the wooded area and moving up on the manor walls, Liv moves up ahead of me quickly and silently, making less sound than a fox sneaking around a guard dog. I watch her nimbly make her way a short distance up a tree nearby, squinting up at the walls of the villa while I crouch nearby. Her brow furrows, and she slithers back down to my side.
“No guards on the walls,” she reports, and I blink in surprise, looking up there myself to confirm her statement. I don’t have as good a view as she did, but it looks like she’s right. I nod for us to proceed, and we sneak up to the base of the walls, where the ivy wafts above us in the breeze, moonlight catching on their broad leaves, but not a sound of footsteps can be heard up on the walls, nor the chatter of men on guard duty beyond.
Frowning, Liv glances at a tree that sways just next to the walls, and before I can stop her, she starts shimmying up the branches as if she were born in the trees. I look on in no little wonder at her body.
Despite being so small and fragile, she’s remarkably nimble and dexterous, even for gymnastics students of her caliber. I give a smile, proud of her for being so quick to adapt her natural talents and hard-earned skill to a new environment so quickly. And as she moves, I admire her lithe legs all the way up to her ass, and I feel the lust for her I felt just a couple of hours ago back at our hideout. My mind starts to swim with the wrongness of it all — I slept with my student, a girl already in a new country and a desperate situation.
She put her life into my hands, and I made her mine.
And when she looks down and smiles at the look I’m giving her from below, I know we both crave more. For right or for wrong, there’s no going back, and there’s not an ounce of me that wants to. Hearing her sweet moans, seeing her body writhe against mine... it was the sweetest pleasure my life has ever known.
Then my heart nearly stops as I watch her push off the tree and catch herself on the edge of the wall, no fear in her eyes. She peeks up over the edge and looks around, but I hear no sounds of shouting, no gunshots, and no frenzy for Liv to scramble back down. Instead, she turns and hisses a whisper back down to me.
“Empty!”
I pause, staring up at her. “...empty?”
“Completely,” she says, “nobody on the walls or the courtyard, not even the balconies.”
My first thought is of ambush. But how could they anticipate our arrival, and what kind of ambush would entail all of them leaving the grounds like this? Something sits very sourly with me, and I gesture for Liv to get down.
She climbs her way back to the ground with ease, and we slip around the side of the building cautiously, peeking around each corner as if expecting a gunman behind each one, but there isn’t a sign of life to be found.
Finally, we reach the guard post at the front entrance, and my suspicion is confirmed — there’s nobody here. I draw my pistol, moving close to the booth, and I stand up over it and push the gun through the open window.
Nothing.
I look around at the courtyard and see only a lone squirrel bound away from us near a decorative tree. A fountain towards the center is turned off, and it’s deathly silent all around. We head in, keeping close to the walls and moving around the side of the building.
My eyes are on the windows, waiting for a curtain to move or for me to see a pair of eyes watching us or a rifle scope trained on us, but there’s simply nothing. Something starts to nag at me, and I start to take out my phone to call Felix when I catch Liv out of the corner of my eye, climbing up the side of the wall towards one of the balconies.