Honored Vow

grounds?”
    “You—”
    “Not me,” she said with a grin. “I can leave whenever I want. You’re
    the one who’s under house arrest, dear.”
    “But us getting out of here starts with you,” I assured her.
    “How?”
    “Just put on your gym clothes and drive out the front gate.”
    She stared at me.
    “I’ll pack a bag and drop it off the balcony, and then I’ll go down for
    a run. When everyone’s trying to figure out who’s gonna go with me, you
    get the bag and throw it in the back of your car. Once we’re off the
    grounds, we’re out of here.”
    “Jin, they’ll never let you off the grounds, honey. They’ll follow you
    and—”
    I arched an eyebrow for her.
    “Oh,” she said, nodding, “right. They won’t even be able to keep
    up.”
    “Taj is the only one who can keep pace with me, and he’s gone.”
    “Logan can too.”
    “For a short time.” I swallowed down my heart.
    She nodded. “Okay. How far down do I meet you?”
    “A mile.”
    “How fast can you do that?”
    I waggled my brows for her, and she giggled.
    “He’ll skin us both, you know.”
    A shudder tore through me, and her eyes filled that fast as I allowed
    her, for a second, to feel the breadth of my pain.
    “Oh, Jin,” she whimpered.

    32

    Mary Calmes

    I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart. “He left me here, and
    all I wanted was to go to Crane. He forbade me from going with him. And
    I understand why, I do, but staying here… I—I will go right out of my
    mind. And Russ needs us. If Logan’s gonna save Crane, then you and I,
    we’re saving Russ.”
    She nodded, taking a breath. “Okay.”
    “Aren’t you worried about him? Don’t you think we should go?”
    “I do.”
    “So let’s go.”
    She turned for the door.
    “Shit.”
    “What?” She looked back at me.
    “Markel.”
    “Oh, no, it’s okay; he’s working on a new piece for his gallery
    opening next week, so he’s at his studio morning, noon, and night.”
    “So he won’t even notice you’re gone.”
    “Probably not.”
    “Good. We’ll be gone; he’ll have more time without you bugging
    him to have sex.”
    “Exactly.”
    We had a pact.
    And two hours later, our escape was seamless. I met her, alone, in
    her Lexus, a mile away from the front gate of our home. She had clothes
    and shoes for me and a big smile. Ivan, who was at the front gate, had let
    Delphine leave to go to the gym without question. He didn’t even check to
    see how many bags there were in the trunk of the car. But why would he
    have?
    I had shifted, ostensibly to exercise, and Artem, Yuri’s second, and
    three others had started the run with me. I left them after five minutes, and
    they never caught up.
    At the airport, I paid for the one-way tickets to Los Angeles in cash,
    having taken a wad from the safe in my bedroom and given it to Delphine.
    Once we were taxiing down the runway, I felt like I could breathe.

    Honored Vow

    33

    THE cold January air smelled good, faintly of the sea, which soothed me,
    and it was not nearly as freezing in Santa Monica as it was in Nevada.
    Delphine had used her phone and booked a room at the Surfrider Motel,
    which was on Ocean Avenue, and I drove us there after we used her card
    at the rental-car counter. Once we had checked in, each of us claiming one
    of the twin beds, we left our bags and Delphine navigated to Russ’s loft.
    He lived off Fourth Street, and Delphine told me that once we found
    him, we should all go for crêpes at this place that he had taken her the last
    time she visited. There was no question in her mind that everything would
    turn out fine. At six that evening, we knocked on Russ’s door.
    The woman who answered was breathless. “Hello?”
    “Hi again.” Delphine smiled, pushing around me. “Remember me?”
    “Ohmygod,” Samantha sighed, lunging at Delphine. “I wanted to
    call you so bad, but Russ was very specific and told me that if anything
    ever happened that I should call Jin, not you, and I don’t know why, but he
    was so— so adamant, and now… ohmygod, thank you so much for
    coming!”
    The two women hugged tight, and slowly, Samantha calmed enough
    to meet me. Her eyes took me in. “It’s so good to meet you. Russ always
    goes on and on about you.”
    “Well, I kind of like him a little bit too.”
    She nodded fast, eyes filling. “I don’t know what to do.”
    But I did. “Samantha, could you tell me and Delphine where Russ
    went to meet Mr. Dempsey?”
    “Of