Wanting to get back to her and my niece, I was going to make this short and as painless as possible. For myself, at least. If Garret got banged up a little, it was the least he deserved for hanging up on me when he should have shut the fuck up and listened. Then his ass would have already been in Colombia where he belonged.

I gave it another thirty minutes, making sure Ryan was deep asleep before I made a move.

Tavia and Theo lived on the top two floors of the building and had made the roof a playground wonderland for their children. A stairwell led from the roof down to the other floors, which were all protected with a security system that required not only a seven-digit code, but also a fingerprint scanner.

My fingerprints had been put into the security system to allow me access years before, when Tavia first moved in to the building with Theo. The code wasn’t going to be an issue either. The trickiest part about getting into the building was getting to the roof. It wasn’t as if I could just walk into the lobby and use the elevator. The guards who were always on duty would freak out and cause a commotion I wasn’t in the mood to deal with.

The building had no fire escape, but there was one on the neighboring building. I climbed it, taking my time because the damn thing was old and I didn’t trust it not to pull from the building even under my slight weight. It was going to be a total bitch if I had to bring Garret down the same way, but I was hoping he wouldn’t give me any issues and we could go out the back since leaving without being seen was easier than getting into the building.

There was a gap between the two roofs that was a good six feet. It took me a few minutes to get up the nerve to make the jump. I was short, damn it. My tiny body wasn’t made for long jumps like that.

Taking a deep breath, I backed up and made a running leap. As I cleared the gap, I gave a whispered thanks to whoever might be watching over me. But just as I landed, my right foot rolled, and I stumbled.

“Sonofabitch,” I whisper-shouted as pain shot up my entire leg, and I dropped onto my ass so I could catch my breath.

I could barely see, but nothing felt broken. Figuring I’d only sprained it, I forced myself to stand and limped to the stairs.

Three floors down, I wiped my sweaty hand on my black yoga pants and pressed it against the scanner once I’d punched in the code. I had a moment of panic, wondering if they might have taken my prints out of the system, or changed the code while I was away. But then the door clicked quietly, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled it open cautiously.