It was absurd. Wylder’s aunt had been a thorn in my side from the moment she’d spoken her first words to me, but I couldn’t relax until I knew I’d done everything I could to stop Gia’s awful plan. Maybe I hadn’t become as ruthless as my father would have wanted after all.
And actually… I was okay with that.
Finally, the taxi careened up the steep hill. The second the mansion came into sight, I spotted a car pulling out of its driveway. Not one I recognized as belonging to any of the guys, either.
“Stop!” I shouted at the cabbie, and smacked into the back of the seat when he slammed on the brakes. I tossed a handful of bills that should cover the ride at him and hurtled out of the taxi. The driver muttered some comment, but he drove off a moment later.
The car from the mansion cruised toward me, already picking up speed to take the turn and head down the hill. The light from the streetlamps reflected off the windshield, and then I caught a glimpse of Anthea’s red hair and startled face behind the glass. My pulse hiccupped.
There was only one way my panicked brain could come up with to stop her. I dashed forward and threw myself into her path, my arms spread. “Stop! There’s something wrong with the car!”
I couldn’t tell whether she’d heard me. She honked the horn, but I didn’t budge. Her eyes narrowed, and for a second I thought she was going to speed up instead and run me over.
Then the engine’s growl eased. The car started to slow. I let out my breath—and all at once Anthea’s expression froze.
Her body jerked as if she was stomping on the brake, but the car kept traveling forward, slower than before but fast enough that it’d still break bones if it hit me. It was gaining speed as it reached the first gradual incline before the turn. I wavered, caught in the crazy sense that if I jumped out of the way, I’d have let her down, even though I could hardly have stopped the vehicle with my bare hands.
Anthea jerked the wheel, and the car whipped to the side. It lurched up over the sidewalk and smashed straight into a telephone pole.
The hood crumpled around the pole about a foot deep, the engine sputtering. I raced over and yanked open the driver’s side door.
Anthea was rubbing her chest where the seat belt must have jarred against it, her breath coming roughly. It didn’t look as if she’d injured herself in any major way, but appearances could be deceiving.
“Are you okay?” I asked, every nerve in my body jittering.
She stared at me so blankly that I couldn’t help worrying she’d sustained some kind of brain damage after all. Then the haze started to clear from her eyes, but she didn’t look all that much less confused. With her scowl missing, she seemed much younger than her twenty-eight years.
“The brakes failed,” she said. “And then the airbag failed too. You were trying to stop me. You… knew?”
“I heard that something was wrong from the person who screwed up your car,” I said. “I’ve beentryingto let the guys know…”
I trailed off, a shudder running through me at the thought of how Anthea would have ended up if I’d gotten here even a minute later. All the momentum from going down the hill—the car would have been flying by the time she reached the bottom, and she’d have had no way to stop it. What were the chances she’d have survivedthatcrash?
Anthea was still staring. “Yousavedme. You threw yourself in front of the car…” She trailed off.
A shaky grin crossed my face. “We might not get along all that well, but you haven’tquitepissed me off to the point of wishing you dead yet.”
She didn’t smile in return. Swiping her hand across her mouth, she frowned at the steering wheel and then at me again. “Whodid this?”
Here was the hard part. “Gia,” I said. “I know it sounds insane, but I wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t bragged about how she messed with your car. That’s the whole reason I rushed back here. I guess she knows about auto mechanics from her dad.”
Anthea blinked, thinking that over, but she didn’t argue with me. “Why would agroupiewant me dead?” she asked instead, shifting to pull herself out of the car.
I swallowed hard. “Because she killed Titus, and she was getting worried that you’d figure that out.”
Anthea jerked to a halt. “What?That skinny little thing?” She looked as if she was going to make some caustic remark about my judgment, but to my surprise, she paused, and her tone came out almost respectfully. “What makes you say that?”
“I—it’s a long story. We can get into it in the house. Let’s just say it all started with an obsession with Kaige.” I dug out the dog tags and handed them to her. “Did you hear he was missing these?”
She glanced down at them in her hand, and her lips twitched into a dazed smile. “He asked if I could keep an eye out for them while I searched for evidence. That big dolt.”
Her tone was more affectionate than I’d ever heard it, in a maternal sort of way. If I hadn’t realized it before, I’d have known now just how much she cared about Wylder and his crew.
“Come on,” I said, stepping back to give her room. Down the street, the mansion’s door banged, and I glanced over to see several figures marching toward us, with Wylder, Kaige, and Rowan in the lead. “It looks like I have alotof explaining to—”
Another car came screeching around the corner. Before I could process what was happening, it’d lurched to a stop beside us, and Gia was launching herself out, straight at me.
“You little bitch!” she snapped, wrenching me toward her and nearly pulling my arm out of its socket. “You just had to screw everything up.”