Ava's POV
She was halfway through the window when she heard the deadbolt.
Not breaking. Sliding.
Leo opening the door from the inside.
She stopped. Her hips on the sill, her legs still in the bathroom, the cold outside air on her face and hands, and she stopped because the sound was wrong not the sound of the door giving way, not wood splitting, but the deliberate mechanical click of a man choosing to open a door on his own terms before it was taken off its hinges.
She understood immediately.
Leo was not going to let Mark come through a broken door with a running start and full momentum and a parking lot of open space behind him. Leo was going to take away the advantage of the threshold and make it his own.
She pulled herself back through the window.
"Ava." Leo's voice, sharp. "I said go."
She dropped back onto the bathroom floor. "I'm not going."
No time for him to argue. The door was already open.
She came through the bathroom doorway in time to see it.
