“I’m fine,” Tate assured him, gripping the other man’s shoulder. “I stayed down so Oscar wouldn’t decide he needed to tie us up.”
“Did anyone see the Taser thing coming?” Scarlet asked. “Because I usually see problems coming, and this one…”
“No, my cousin and her lovers’ losing their minds was not one of the outcomes we discussed, though perhaps we should have considered it, given Langston’s concerns at our last meeting.”
Roman’s words were precise and polite, like everything the man did. In the past two weeks, the three of them had spent a great deal of time together, planning this wedding. As such, Tate had gotten to know both Roman and Scarlet fairly well. Roman was calm, collected, and scary smart.
Tate had spent an evening with his Warrior Scholar roommates trying to decide if Roman really was a budget analyst for the NSA or if that was a cover for him being a secret agent of some kind. He wasn’t obviously dangerous, and those were the types of people who made great CIA agents.
Levi had been there that night and he’d offered up an argument that felt pretty solid. Because Levi was still working on his degree in Classics from Harvard, the first year of his marriage was a long-distance deal since his husband and wife were movie stars who lived in Hollywood.
“He probably is an accountant,” Levi had said. “And that’s scarier. It was a team of accountants who brought down Al Capone.”
Getting to know Roman meant that Tate wasn’t surprised when, the instant his hand landed on the other man’s shoulder, a shock of awareness went through him. Tate had to check the urge to squeeze Roman’s shoulder just because he wanted to feel the other man’s body give under his fingers.
Now was not the time to think about the growing attraction between the three of them, despite the very convenient bed Scarlet sat on.
Tate forced himself to focus on the mission, ignoring his libido. “First step, we get out of here and get our phones.”
Luca had taken his while Tate was still on the ground. The apologetic look he gave did not make Tate feel any kinder toward Luca.
“Hold on, there’s something I can try.” Roman raised his arm and tapped on his watch—one of those cool watches that could make calls. Tate held his breath, but Roman shook his head. “They must have turned my phone off.”
“Worth a try,” Tate commiserated.
“You could have tried to run for it,” Scarlet said to Roman.
Roman’s brows rose. “And leave you two?”
“And get help. Or at least get the okay from the Grand Master to tell them what’s going on.” Scarlet didn’t sound angry, more like she was just talking through the possibilities.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” Roman said quietly. “Selene is...uh, I was going to say harmless but…”
“Your cousin is nuts.” Tate had no interest in mincing words. “So is Oscar. The sanest one is a dude who makes bombs, who I almost killed back on Long Wharf in Boston.”
Scarlet grinned.
“What?” Tate asked.
Her grin widened, showing teeth.
“What?” Roman asked.
“Oscar and Luca are going to be Roman’s in-laws.”
Roman groaned quietly and sank down to sit on the side of the bed.
Tate snorted in amusement and then set about searching the room. Oscar had done a pretty good job of stripping it, but Tate had gotten out of much worse situations than this.
There were two windows, one in the bedroom and a tiny one in the bathroom. The bathroom one was useless, but the bedroom window looked out onto a copse of trees, and beyond that a field. They were at the back of the house, and although, according to Langston, every inch of the property was covered in cameras—a result of Luca’s actions a couple of months earlier when he broke into Langston’s lab—Tate was making the calculated choice to take them out the window rather than the door. He was hoping that Oscar and crew would be too caught up in making preparations to go on the run to be watching the cameras. However, they might see them from Oscar’s windows if Tate took them out the front door of the house.
Tate checked the window, and as expected, he couldn’t just open it. Screws had been drilled into the frame in the track three inches above the top of the lower pane—a low tech, very effective, if semi-permanent method of stopping a window from opening.
That meant it was time to break the glass.
Tate took a step back, raised his right leg, and kicked, aiming his heel at the corner of the lower pane of glass. He still had his shoes on, and the thick soles were a hindrance rather than a help, but he didn’t want to risk taking off the shoe and cutting his foot.
He was a big, heavily-muscled guy, and his regular squat load was three hundred pounds. The glass should have at least cracked.
Instead, the glass held, and it felt like he was kicking a steel plate. His leg vibrated with pain and he lost his balance, falling backwards. Roman and Scarlet both grabbed for him, and Roman managed to put a shoulder against him and redirect Tate’s fall so he landed half on the bed before sliding to the floor.
“What...the hell?” Tate wheezed.
“I don’t think you can just kick out windows like that,” Scarlet said. “I think that only works on TV.”
“I have literally done this before. Multiple times.” Tate sprang up from his sprawl on the floor. “I must have had a bad angle.”
Tate got up and tried again.
And again.
Twenty minutes later, sweaty, Tate threw his hands in the air. “What paranoid asshole puts bulletproof glass windows in a random farmhouse in rural South Carolina?”
Roman and Scarlet, sitting side by side on the bed, looking a little bored, answered at the same time. “A Hayden.”
Another twenty minutes passed, during which Tate tried to take apart the plumbing under the bathroom sink by hand so he could use the pipe as a baton. That didn’t work.
Twenty minutes after that, Tate lay on his back across the foot of the bed, his hands over his face. Scarlet had her heels propped on his thigh, while Roman’s legs were bent, forearms on his knees.
“Just so we’re all clear,” Scarlet said. “We are actually trapped here.”
Tate didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Give me a minute and I’ll try breaking through the door.”
“If it’s steel core…” She trailed off.
“Don’t break your leg,” Roman advised.
“This is my worst nightmare,” Tate said.
“Getting kidnapped?”
“No, getting kidnapped by amateurs. My roommates will literally never let this shit go,” he groaned. “They’re relentless fuckers.”
“The Warrior Scholars?” Scarlet had been fascinated by the idea of a group of former military men, now graduate students at Ivy League schools, serving as bodyguards for the Trinity Masters.
Before Tate could answer, there was a soft knock on the door.
Tate was on his feet, motioning the others to get behind him, before the third knock sounded.
“Roman?” Selene called. “It’s me. I just…”
Tate looked at Roman and used hand signals to indicate he should keep her talking. Roman and Scarlet just looked at him, utterly confused.