The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 211

Chapter 190: Caught

Jade pov

“Yes,” I said.

“Am I speaking with Jade Hart?” It was a woman’s voice.

Something cold moved through me.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Special Agent Dana Reyes,” she said. “FBI. Miss Hart, I need you to stay exactly where you are.”

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Agent Reyes, I looked out the window at the river. The boat had moved so far down that I could no longer

see it.

“How did you get this number?” I asked.

“We’ve had it for weeks,” Reyes said. Her voice was just like I had heard before. “Miss Hart, I need you to stay exactly where you are.”

I looked around the room. The boring furniture, the bag I hadn’t fully unpacked, and the second laptop open on the table.

“I don’t know what you think”

“Fourteenth floor, facing east,” she said. “Canary Wharf. We’ve been outside the building for eleven minutes.”

I closed my eyes.

In the end, it was M. It was always going to be M-useful right up until the moment he became more scared of the police than he was of losing my money. I had known that was a possibility and used him anyway. That was my mistake-the one real mistake in an otherwise careful morning.

I opened my eyes.

“I’ll come down,” I said.

“Please do,” said Reyes.

1

I put the phone down on the table and stood very still for about four seconds.

Then, I moved. I didn’t go toward the door; I went toward the window. Fourteenth floor, facing east. The building had a maintenance stairwell on the north side that didn’t connect to the main lobby. M had told me that when he sent the code, mentioning it casually, the way he always shared useful facts. Fourteenth floor, north stairwell bypasses the front desk, useful if you need it. I had saved that detail in my head without knowing when I would need it.

I needed it now.

I grabbed the bag. I left the laptop behind because it was too heavy, too slow, and might already be tracked by the police. The second phone went into my pocket in seconds, I was at the north stairwell door.

Chapter 190-right

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moved fast and quiet, the way I used to when I was seventeen and sneaking out of my father’s house, back when I was genuinely afraid of being caught.

I hadn’t feared consequences in a long time.

I was relearning that fear now,

The stairwell was cold concrete and smelled like cleaning fluid. I went down the stairs fast as my hand slid along the rail as I counted the floors. Twelve. Eleven. Ten..

My phone buzzed. It was Reyes again, but I didn’t answer.

Nine. Eight.

Suddenly, the stairwell door on the seventh floor opened.

A man stepped in below me. He wore a dark jacket and an earpiece, standing with the calm posture of someone who was exactly where he wanted to be. He looked up, our eyes met, and he said very calmly, “Miss Hart. Please don’t.”

I turned and ran back up. My lungs were starting to hurt. I was not a woman who ran, never had been, and had always thought running was beneath me. The bag felt heavier now, and the stairs felt endless.

Fifteenth floor. Sixteenth.

The roof door had an alarm on it, but I hit it anyway. The alternative was standing in a stairwell waiting to be caught, and I refused to do that.

The alarm was loud and immediate, but it didn’t matter now.

The roof was flat, grey, and windy. I could see the river in three directions, and the city was laid out below me. It looked completely indifferent, like something that had been here long before me and would be here long after I was gone. Standing in the wind, I looked at the paths across the roof and calculated my options.

There was a service ladder on the east side that connected to the building next door. It was an older, shorter structure with a fire escape that probably hadn’t been checked in a long time. If I could get across.

“Miss Hart.”

Reyes was behind me. She hadn’t come from the stairwell I used, that was sure.

She was alone, which meant the others were covering the exits below. They had planned for exactly this

move.

I looked at the ladder, which was a few feet to my left.

“Don’t,” Reyes said. “The building next door has two of my people on the roof, the fire escape has one more on the third floor, and the street below has a car.” She paused. “There is no version of the next plan that ends differently.”

I looked at the ladder.

I looked at the river.

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Chapter 190 Caught

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thought about Bella waking up right now in Caleb’s penthouse. She had no idea I was standing on a windy Tooftop, trying to calculate a way down my escape.

The fury in me was so extreme.”You don’t understand what she took from me,” I said.

“Miss Hart”

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