Lucifer tosses a random baseball hat at me, most likely a part of Adam’s arsenal of disguises. “Wear that,” he orders. “You still look like you or your popstar brother, asshole. Not a good way to blend in. You’re on the run. Act like it. Shave the goatee and that mass of hair on your head. Or at least dye it. Do something to hide.”
“You sound like a nagging mom,” I say, snatching up the hat where it now lays by my feet. It’s already on my head and pulled low, when he adds, “And you’re the little bitch that turned me into my mother.”
But I’ve already tuned him out. Saving Pri is all that I can think of right now.
I hop out of the van and shut Lucifer inside.
Discretion means exuding confidence and blending with the crowd. I shut the van door and my weapon stays at my side, hidden by the light jacket the fall season allows me to utilize for cover. I don’t even think about pulling it. Not yet. Instead, I walk from the side street to the restaurant parking lot and do so with the stride of a man who knows he’s got a great meal and a pretty woman waiting on him. As the door draws near, there’s no sign of Adam or the bald man. At the right moment, I pretend as if I’ve just remembered something in my car. I turn back and then duck low behind a car, and inch a path to the side of the building.
In a few beats, I’m scanning the dimly lit alleyway to find no one in sight. That doesn’t mean no one is here, but it’s good enough for me right now. I need to get to Pri. I break toward the door, open it, and step into the hallway. Logan isn’t there. The bathroom door is shut.
Fuck.
He’s in the bathroom with Pri.
Not for long, I think, walking toward the door.
Even if that means I have to blow the doorknob off.
A figure rounds the corner from the direction of the restaurant, and I look up to find Adam headed in my direction. The rear door opens and the bald man appears. “I got this,” Adam says, already charging past me. I don’t argue. The bald man is his to do with what he pleases.
Logan is mine.
Chapter Two
PRI
It all happened so fast. One minute I was sitting at my favorite Italian restaurant, waiting on my parents to join me. A night that might sound and appear simple, even pleasant, but nothing about me with my parents is ever simple or pleasant.
Meanwhile, members of Walker Security had been nearby, monitoring the situation, watching and listening to me through a tiny recording chip embedded in a bracelet. Adrian was close. He’d wanted me to just leave, to escape with him and there is nothing I would rather do. I love that man. I love him so much and I barely know him. Maybe it’s all about the danger and the insanity of being hunted, but we have crashed into each other like two waves that collided into something far more magnificent than when we were apart.
And no one in my life has ever made me feel as if I was stronger with them than apart.
But he does.
And no one in my life has ever put my needs first.
But he does.
Thus, the plan.
I was to confront my father over his involvement with Nick Waters, the King Devil of the Devils motorcycle club, and then to convince him that the game was up. Waters will do anything to survive, to get out of jail and stay out of jail, and that includes murder. Our murders. Waters will kill me and my parents, and most certainly my star witness, Adrian Mack, if he’s given the chance.
But my parents didn’t show up to dinner.
Logan, my ex, who works for my father, who I believe is the man who connected my father to Waters in the first place, was suddenly sitting in front of me. He claimed that my parents wanted him to “get me under control.” By control, he’d meant for me to drop the Waters case, which would surely delay the trial. Which in turn, would surely, for many complicated reasons, allow Waters to walk free.
Sitting there across from Logan, it was hard to know if my father, or my mother, were involved in Logan’s appearance. Walker had found some evidence that suggested my father may have been blackmailed by Waters, or perhaps Logan. Or my father could have simply refused the dinner date my mother and I set-up, and Logan had found out, and invited himself to join me. Or not. As I said, it’s hard to know what is really going on. My father’s firm makes big money protecting bigger criminals. Logan has some involvement directly or indirectly with Waters, and that means so does my father.