Free Escaping Vegas (The Inheritance Book 1) by Danielle Bourdon

other side. In that particular moment, though, she ignored the pain in favor of staying one step ahead of their adversaries.
    “Look, Madalina. Let me give you a hypothetical. Let’s say you tell the police everything. There’s a good chance they’ll take me in for questioning after they discover that I shot at a car full of people. Even if I’m gone for a few hours, that leaves you exposed and vulnerable. The agents will probably make an extreme effort to get their hands on you while you’re unprotected, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. Once the agents find out we’ve brought the police into it, they’ll start looking for any kind of leverage to use against the chief, which might have a trickle-down effect. Right this second, we have the advantage of surprise. Let’s not give the agents the ability to trump up fake charges against me or you, or to lean on the local police. We’ll have to give a statement, but let’s get in and out as quickly as possible.” He glanced sidelong, then scanned the street as they reached the corner.
    Madalina finally understood, or at least accepted, Cole’s version of what-ifs. She said, “All right. Okay. So, we just came home from Vegas—how do I explain you?”
    “Tell them I’m your boyfriend. We’ve been dating for three months.”
    “Where did we meet?”
    “I came into your store—”
    “We sell clothing and accessories for women.”
    “I was buying for a coworker? They don’t need to know what I was doing there to begin with.”
    “But you don’t live here.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    Madalina puffed through another few breaths as they turned another corner onto her street. Tension tightened her shoulders. The agents could be anywhere. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Okay, so you’re my boyfriend, and we met at my work. We’ve been going out for three months. We came home and found my house a wreck.”
    “Right.”
    Ahead, Madalina saw a police cruiser pull in behind Cole’s Jaguar.
    Cole slowed to a walk in front of the house before her own. Grateful to slow down, winded from the jog, she went over the details one more time in her mind.
    “Hello, Officer. I’m Cole, the one who called,” Cole said to the two officers. The cops had their flashlights drawn. Both were men, one in his late thirties, with dark hair, the other younger by a decade. The younger officer’s pale complexion, which all but glowed in the night, was offset by blond lashes, red-tinged brows, and a hint of auburn hair under his hat.
    “Hello, sir,” the older cop replied.
    Madalina didn’t miss the perplexed looks on their faces and realized they probably wondered what she and Cole were doing jogging up the street.
    “We waited down the street. She was too afraid to stay here until you arrived,” Cole said, smooth as butter.
    The officers nodded and glanced at Madalina. “This is your house?” one asked.
    “Yes. It’s . . . it’s a mess.”
    “All right. Let’s take a look. Wait out here, please. We’ll have some questions when we’re done.” The officer spoke into the radio attached to his uniform. Another patrol car pulled up, and two more officers got out.
    Madalina scanned the street, then greeted the cops as she’d done with the others.
    “Okay, so tell us what happened.” A female officer, blonde hair scraped back into a tight bun, pulled out a pad and a pen.
    “We were just returning from a short getaway. Cole stepped into the house and . . . discovered someone had broken in. We went to wait at the end of the street, afraid the thieves would come back.” Madalina couldn’t help but cast looks over her shoulder, despite the presence of the cops. She felt safer, by far, but was too paranoid now to not perpetually check her surroundings.
    “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” the female cop asked.
    “No. Not a clue.”
    “Did you notice anything stolen?”
    “It’s . . .” Madalina paused to swallow.