“For the love, Sneaks, it is not that hard a question, I’m trying to include you in this. North or East?” My fingers began to dig into the steering wheel beneath them. Rage began to pulse through my veins. What the hell was wrong with her? It was like she liked to make everything a god damned argument. Jesus.
Shrugging her shoulders, she mumbled “East, I guess”
So that is what we did. We drove East for as long as we could. Until the gas in the tank ran out. What would happen after that I didn’t know, but for now, well, for now, we would just drive and drive.
The roads blurred together as we moved, and the silence between us only intensified. My mouth was itching to wind her up, in any way possible. Instead, though, I bit my tongue.
Well, that was until she began sighing over and over again. Little miss drama in the seat next to me.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Unable to stop myself from asking.
“Why would he do that, Noah?” The fact that she was saying my name and not calling Diablo should have made me smile, and it did for all of a second when the realization came crashing down on me. She was talking about my father, Nicolas Hartman.
Unable to answer her question, I found myself sighing now, running a dirty hand down my face. To anyone who saw us, I am sure that we looked a state. Like we had been up to no good. Even the hobos that sat outside the subway every day in New York seemed more put together than we did right now. I would bet my last dollar that they smelt a damn sight better than we did as well.
“Noah?” Her voice was small, she was waiting for me to reassure her somehow, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could say to her as to why my father would do this. I know I spent my days doing anything to wind him up. He would get so red-faced it always made me smile when he found out, especially when in front of the people he wanted to think he was this good guy.
My gut feeling about that had been happening to the other people who had ever dared to stand up to Nicolas Hartman was true. Deep down, I didn’t know what to make of that.
Chapter Seven
Valentina
We had driven for hours.
Almost an entire day.
After discovering we had been in Elko, Nevada. God damned Nevada. When we had been taken, they must have driven for days and not hours. How long had we been gone in total, almost a week? I was confused by how slow the time felt like it was moving, but it had flown by in reality. It was terrifying.
Noah had decided in his infinite wisdom that we should just drive East, go as far as we could before stopping to fill the tank. Well, actually, he told me to pick either North or East. My reasoning for choosing it was not as random as I had made it out to be. No, if they were indeed looking for us right now, then surely, they would assume that we would go back home. That we would run straight back to New York, so that is what we would do, go East and then turn North. Throwing them off the sent. Right?
Passing a road sign letting us know we were entering Salt Lake City, Utah, and chancing a look at him, I was surprised by what I saw. His face portrayed a look of pure anger, like he was about to blow a gasket. But looking at his eyes, well, it looked like he had been crying or was about to at least. Who knew that the asshole devil had emotions? Especially after he had told me to shut up when I had been crying before. Go figure.
“Are you okay?” My voice sounded timid to own my ears, nervous about his reaction to me seeing him this way.
Ignoring my question, he glanced down at my hands, “How’re they feeling?”
“Sore,” and in all honestly, they were burning hot to touch. I was doing anything possible not to scratch and itch them. Knowing it would only do more harm than good, “I need to wash them, soon” disinfect the hell out of them.
“We need to fill the tank soon, and we’ll only be able to use the washroom, but it should be enough to clean it until we can get somewhere to hide out for a couple of days.” He watched the road behind us closely, as if they were going to be right behind us at any moment.
“Do you think they’re looking for us?”
“Yeah,” he answered, cursing under his breath as the driver swerved suddenly in front of us, making him slam on the breaks. “Idiot.”
“Do we have enough cash to buy something to clean my wrists properly and ourselves?” In desperate need for a shower more than anything else, I don’t, no, I know I had never smelt like this in my entire life.
“Let’s see how much this van eats in gas.” He grumbled, no doubt mentally adding up the cash he had stolen.
“We need a smaller car” this van would eat the gas the way my brother demolished chips when he watched NFL games “This one, if they are looking for us and somehow follow this route we have taken” not that I thought they could, he had gone around in circles at one point, zig-zagged interstates “they will recognize it instantly.” They would find us. It was far too old of a model to have any form of a tracking device system in it, I think.
“Why little Sneaks, are you proposing we steal a car?”
“I think it’s called commander, Diablo.” It was not like we were taking it just for the hell of it, or worse to sell. No, we would only be taking a vehicle so we could stay alive. Commander fitted the situation.
“Really? I get us out of there, and you still insist on calling me the Devil? Harsh Sneaks, freaking harsh.”
“If it weren’t for you, I never would have ended up there in the first place, for the love of God, I was meant to get off at the lobby.”
Confused, he snorted, “What?”
“Never mind, look, there is a drug store over there,” I pointed, but he drove right past it as if I hadn’t said a word.
“Gas first.”
“Still think we need to get a smaller car, ditch this one.”
“Do you know how to hot-wire a car, Sneaks?”
When I glanced out of the window, not saying a word, I almost heard his jaw hit the stirring wheel “Shit, you do, don’t you?” Knowing exactly how he would be looking at me, I kept my eyes on anything we passed through the window.
Clearing my throat, “My brother might have shown me, once” or twenty times. He didn’t need to know that, though.
“Well, fuck me sideways, you just keep surprising me, Sneaks.”
“Don’t be. You don’t even know me, Diablo.”
Because that was the truth in this situation, we did not know each other. We had to depend on one another now, and that was, well, Jesus, that was almost as scary as being tied in the back of this van when he had first been taken.
“Tell me then, give me some stories of shit you got up to with this brother of yours, what’s his name?”
“Eduardo, but if you call him that and you aren’t his family, be prepared for a punch to the face. He once punched Eric, an ex, in the face the first time I brought him home.” The memory of that night flashed behind my eyes, and I couldn’t help but cringe, remembering it in detail. If you weren’t family, you better only call him Ed.
At this, Noah laughed loudly, the loudest I had heard since knowing him, however long that had actually been.
“Yeah, I didn’t find it so funny at the time, but I discovered that the jerk was on Tinder still even after we had been dating for six months and let Eduardo at him again” Eric deserved what he had gotten. Prick.
Maybe it was just me. No matter how in love I thought I had been at the time there was always something I didn’t know about the man I was dating that I would find out, and then boom, it was over. Chad sprung to mind, but I shoved those thoughts and feelings back down. I was not going to waste time thinking about him again, not after today.
“Woah remind me. Do not fuck around with you or your brother” But as he finished the words, he just gave me his devilish wink. Asshole.
“And don’t you forget it.” Us Borroni’s gave as good as we got.
“Maybe we should change the nicknames around. Maybe you should be the devil,” he laughed at his lame attempt at a joke.
“Yeah, you will forever be the asshole to Allie and Diablo to me, deal with it.”
“Aye, aye captain,” he laughed while throwing a salute at me. He was turning his attention to a car dealership across the street that was closed. The darkness of night was approaching, and we needed to keep moving.
“Think you could hot-wire one of those?” He nodded to the forecourt full of so many different types of second-hand cars. The van idling in the middle of the almost empty road, a couple of people passed us on the street but paid us no attention whatsoever.
“We need to come back when it’s darker, but yeah, probably” definitely. They had some older models that wouldn’t be a problem, as long as we didn’t get caught that is.
“Okay, let’s dump the van get some clean clothes, something for your wrists, and then car-stealing time. I’m very turned on just thinking about watching you steal a car, Sneaks.”
“Have I told you recently how much you disgust me?” Venom dripped from my voice, telling just how much I wanted to simultaneously hit and kick him every time he opened his mouth.
“Not in the last hour, no.” hearing the smile in his voice my eyes turned to watch him as he drove. He had been running his hands through that shaggy blond hair constantly since we had been driving, and it now looked a lot tamer than it had when we’d first escaped.
Snorting I couldn’t help but tell him, “Well, you disgust me.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s not a compliment.” Crazy Diablo.
“Anything is a compliment if you choose to make it one, something I learned a very long time ago was to say thank you when someone tries to put you down, it confuses them, or I guess in your case it infuriates them. Alas, I have a thick skin when it comes to that shit, Sneaks.”
“That’s kind of, sad.”
“And?” looking at me as he drove around a corner his dimples prominently out, he added “that’s not the only thing that is thick about me”
“Fucking hell” unable to help the mutter that fell from my lips in a loud groan, I kept my gaze at the road in front of us.
Pulling up in a Target parking lot, I finally looked over at him. “We can’t go in there looking like this, Noah. We look like we’ve committed a crime, not escaped from one.”
Shrugging his shoulders, “Its target, they have seen worse. Trust me”
“You are abnormal,” pushing the door open, I followed suit and got out of the van, joining him at the front.
Locking the black van securely my eyes followed as he shoved the key into his suit jacket pocket, seeing my quirked brow, “Just in case we need to come back.” He smirked, doing up one of the buttons on his once-white shirt under his suit jacket and vest. How he was still in the three-piece suit was anyone’s guess. It was hot a hell out here, even if the sky was turning dark.
“You are doubting my skills?” He obviously was dubious that I would be able to commander a new car for us.
“No, just making sure we have a way out of here.”
Not believing the words for a second, I followed him into the store, grabbing a red cart. Cringing as my wrists almost began to glow under the harsh lights of the store. The vibrancy of the cuts and smeared blood which was still covering my skin made me almost throw up. People would no doubt see them, and it would only cause questions, and that was even without the rest our appearance, which had already caused a couple of looks from other shoppers, and we had only just walked into the store.
“Here, let me take that, keep your wrists out of sight, Sneaks” Watching this man push a red shopping cart around the store was almost comical. I doubt he had ever looked this domesticated in his entire life before this moment, “What?” He asked, noticing me staring at him.
“This, just, have you ever been in a Target before?” With the suits and who his father was, I assumed that he would never need to. Didn’t he say he had a trust fund? Yeah, no way he had been to a place like Target before.
“Yes, who hasn’t been to Target?”
“You don’t give off the vibe of someone who shops for anything themself.”
“Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving Sneaks.”
“Here,” pulling him by his cuff over to the medicine aisle. I just stood staring, so many options and no idea of what I needed. On the other hand, Noah grabbed creams, lotions, pills, and bandages like he did this every day. What was up with that?
“You allergic to anything?” He asked holding a box of something in the air
“No” not that I knew off anyway, my eyes followed as that box was dropped instantly into the shopping cart.
“Good. Let’s get some clothes to change into and see how much cash we have left to get some supplies, water and food.”
“What about the gas?” He had been so adamant that we needed to get gas first earlier, and yet now he was almost splashing the cash. This man was giving me whiplash.
“We’ll work it out.”
“Noah?”
“Val?”
Smiling that he used my name, “Where are we going to go?”
“As far away as we can.”
“Are we ever going to go back?”
“To New York?” He asked as I moved over to the jeans hanging on the rail, finding my size in a pair of skinny blue ones and dropping them into the cart.
“Yeah,” I answered when he threw a plain black t-shirt into the cart, followed by his own pair of blue jeans. They were way to causal for him. My brain could only imagine this man in a suit, and maybe his birthday suit. Maybe. Not that I was about to tell him that his ego couldn’t take it. Actually, I couldn’t take his ego knowing that.
Turning back to find myself some cheap underwear and a top of some kind, I could hear him following me, the cart right up my ass.
“I don’t know, I hope so. Whatever happens, I promise I will get you home to your family Sneaks.” Looking back at him, I watched as he threw a pair of cheap black sneakers into the cart, my eyes looked down at the black dress ones he was currently wearing.
“What about you?” My heart constricted. Who did he have to go back to? He may be an asshole who infuriated me to the point where I considered a lot of physical harm. At the end of the day, though he was still a human, he had feelings, and with everything we were going through, I don’t think he is actually as bad as he makes himself out to be. The Noah Hartman I had met in the elevator, that was not the real him. I didn’t think so anyway because that man was not the one who was standing with me now.
“If my father wants me dead… I don’t know if I will have the chance to get back.” My fingers wrapped around a packet of bobby pins, slipping a couple off and clutching them in my hand, I turned to face him.
“What about your brother?”
Shrugging, he didn’t say a word. Suspecting what he was thinking, that there might have been a chance his brother was not to be trusted either.
Is that what he thought, that he had no one back home?
This, I couldn’t….. “Noah?”
“Yeah?” He looked up at me, as though he was confused by the tone of my voice.
“We do this together” when it was clear he didn’t know what I meant, I continued, “We go back together, or we don’t, but I’m not going to leave you out here alone; anyway, they took pictures. I’m sure my friends and family are looking for me. Those men will know who I am and find me as soon as I step back into my life if I dared to go back.” My family would not be safe if I was back with them. Were they even safe now, with me out here on the run? I had to believe that yes, they were safe. Please let that be true.
He stayed silent as I put the last of my clothes into the cart, thinking the words I had just spoken. We had to stick together in this. It was the only way to survive.
“Food and water?” I asked, realizing he was still processing what I’d said to him. There was no way that I could just walk away and go back to my own life. I would forever be thinking about him, worrying about what had happened to him,
where he was, what he is doing. Who he was with? Wait. What?
“Let’s just get some water and some snacks to eat on the road.” Repeating myself again, I began to pull the end of the shopping cart, making him move with me.
“Sure” nodding his head, he began to finally follow beside me to find some road trip appropriate snacks. Well, a road trip may be the wrong expression, more like on the run snacks. Which sounded a little wrong, but it is what it is at the end of the day.
Devil In The Elevator: A Hartman Romance Page 7