Was the shooting not enough of a hint?
We’re doing about a hundred miles an hour. The car shakes, sputtering from the exhaust pipe, and the engine strains as if on the verge of giving up any second.
And then Archer whizzes past us on a black motorcycle as if we’re at a standstill. My heart kicks a riot in my chest, mingling fear with adrenaline, but it all dies down when nothing happens. Archer keeps going, speeding into the darkness of the night until he’s out of sight.
Tayler’s nervous chuckle fills the confined space. “Shit, that was... God! I feel like I’m in a fucking movie!” He takes his foot off the pedal, slowing the car to a more pickup-friendly speed. The road ahead is empty as far as the eye can see, but a faint glow of city lights looms in the distance.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Rick says, voicing my thoughts.
And thenfuck!booms over other sounds. A silhouette of a man standing in the middle of the road comes into view. Archer holds his arm outstretched, aiming his gun at the pickup. Panic curdles the blood in my veins. Clots jam every major artery. I watch in horror as he pulls the trigger.
The front tire of the truck blows up.
The car goes airborne...
This time, it does feel like in the movies. Time slows down; sounds mute. The car flips onto the side, then the roof, and keeps rolling fast. Too fast to comprehend which way is up. Rick holds me in a vice grip of his arms only for a moment before the centrifugal force throws him against the window.
The world unmutes. A deafening clatter of metal bending, glass breaking, and Jean screaming pierces my eardrums like steel splinters. Raw, intense pain resonates all over my body when I bounce off the seats, the roof, and the windows.
The car stops rolling, swinging on the roof several times before it stills completely. Clouds of smoke hiss from under the bonnet.
And then, everything fades to black.
CHAPTER TEN
Dante
Spades attempts to impersonate Rookie, burning across the city toward Jess’s house. He emergency brakes at every corner and slams the gas halfway through the turn. My head bows back and forth, hitting the headrest every time. He’s fucking hair-raising behind the wheel.
Still, I’ve been the passenger with much worse drivers behind the wheel. While Spades’ skills aren’t that bad, he fails miserably in the laid-back attitude department Rookie emanates. Spades clutches the wheel so hard I think he’ll rip it out of the steering column. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, eyes glued to the road, Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows hard. I’ve never seen him this tense.
He’s probably never felt so tense either.
Julij’s hot on our tail with Dimitri behind the wheel of their rental Camaro. He insisted he accompanies me to meet Jess. He claims she’ll be more inclined to talk if she sees that we’re both looking for Layla. Maybe he has a point.
Hehas no reason to hurt her, and that argument might come in handy. With everything that happened, it’s safe to assume Jess is not my biggest fan.
I hold my spare phone on my knee and light the screen repeatedly, staring at Layla’s picture: a security camera frame from the night we first met. She sits at the bar, her chin high, no smile across her lips. A red dress hugs her body, and an abundance of dark locks frames her doll-like, innocent face.
“You tell me. I’m not a guy. I don’t know what’s so repulsive about me.”
“Frankie.” Nothing else is an option. “Men are afraid to touch you because they’re afraid of your father.”
The fabric of her dress rolls up when she readjusts her position exposing more skin. A beauty markhalfwayup her thigh comes into view as if to taunt me as if to say,this marks the spot where you kiss.And, fuck if that’s not what I want to do right now. I move in, resting my elbows on my knees, and place my hands on herlegs, stroking the small dark spot with my thumb.
Gut-wrenching desire mixes with a cruel, compelling need to taste her lips.The intensityof my lust quadruples becauseno onehas kissed her yet, andno onehas had her between the sheets. I feel like Neil Armstrong the day he boarded Apollo 11 with the moon in his sights. I have Layla, my star, right in front of me. I want to be the first man to do everythingto her, andwith her, that she should’ve done by now.
“You’re not afraid,” she utters, eyeslingering on my hands feeling up her legs.
I dig my fingertips into her flesh, my blood turning into red hot lava. “I’m not afraid of Frank, Star.”
Spades pulls into the driveway of what I’d call Frank’s house two weeks ago, but what is now Jess’s house alone. He kills the engine, slinging the door open. A cold shiver slides down my spine when the cool air seeps through the thin fabric of my shirt. I hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that Frank Harston is dead. I know he is. I saw him take his last breath, but while I crumbled under Layla’s betrayal and drowned in the pain of losing her, I failed to process Frank’s death. Now, standing at the door to his once house, the realization courses through my veins, slow like tar. It feels like fuckingdefeat. The hatred between us grew throughout the years but failed to erase memories.
Frankie helped me when I needed help most. At sixteen, ruled by hormones and rage, I was destined for doom. I rained hell, getting in trouble with Chicago’s finest thanks to many idiotic stunts, fighting with anyone who dared to look at me wrong. After a few weeks of wandering Chicago with bruised knuckles, a few weeks of my uncle threatening to ship me off to military school, a few weeks of rage trapped inside of me and begging for an out, destiny placed Frank Harston in my path.
I still remember the first time he invited me over to his house,thishouse I stood in front of, for dinner. He mentioned he had a job for me. He didn’t explain the job, but a tailor-made suit on a twenty-something-year-old and the gun I spotted under his pristine suit jacket clued me into his line of work.
I was in awe of the man back then. He lived the dream. Big house, full wallet, and a beautiful family. A family I became a part of for six years until I went rogue... then, not long ago, one-third of the said family became a part of me.