by Addison Jane
His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “No, we’re going to get another car.”
I slump into my seat. “Awesome. Because I’m sure we have time to pop into a car yard and buy a new car.”
“Never said anything about buying,” he states.
I flick my head to him. “Of course. Let’s just add grand theft auto to the growing list.”
He doesn’t respond, making a series of quick turns until we’re in a neighborhood I don’t recognize. It’s a not so nice part of town, and by that I mean, there’s no streetlights, and you wouldn’t dare walk through it alone at night.
Kace pulls up behind an old style Nissan. He leans into the backseat, pulling a thin rope from his bag and making a small loop in it.
“Who are you? Mary Poppins?” I ask, looking over at the bag that seems to hold everything including a kitchen sink. He ignores me, throwing open his door and climbing out. I scramble with the door handle, not willing to be left here alone. As I scurry around the car, Kace already has the string inside the window and is pulling it back and forth, moving the loop down toward the old school pop up lock. I turn my back to him, my eyes scanning up and down the street as I tap my foot nervously against the sidewalk.
I see lights flash as a car turns onto the street. “Car!” I whisper urgently.
Kace grabs me and pulls me down, our backs against the Nissan as the car moves slowly down the street. We stay crouched as it pulls into a driveway a few houses down.
“I feel like this isn’t your first time…” Kace murmurs softly in my ear as he holds me close to him. I shiver, feeling my cheeks heat in the darkness. “Stealing a car I mean,” he adds in amusement.
“No, this is definitely a first,” I reply, my heart racing as we listen to the offending car door open and the footsteps that follow. “But I’ve had to keep watch for Molly a couple times while she took revenge on her ex-boyfriends.”
We hear the front door of a house open and shut, and Kace peeks through the car windows to ensure the person is gone. “We’re good. Get in,” he orders, helping me to my feet while he rushes back to his car and pulls out his bottomless bag.
I climb across the driver’s seat and into the passenger side. The car is cold and has a strange smell. I look over to the backseat, there’s fast food rubbish and a couple books, but nothing to really tell me what kind of person owns it.
Kace jumps in, throwing his bag in the back and handing me the gun I’d left on the floor of his car. I lean down, placing it between my feet again. “Are you going to hot wire—”
I look up suddenly, hearing a crunch, just in time to see the ignition barrel fall to the floor. My eyes widen as he shoves the screwdriver that he just used to wedge it off with, into the ignition and turn it. The car roars to life, louder than I expected it to be and Kace throws it into drive, taking off at breakneck speed down the street.
I pull my belt on quickly as we make a left out of the intersection. “Do you know Molly’s phone number?” he asks. “We need to get to a pay phone and call her, I’m gonna need her to watch Daisy.”
“Yeah, I know it,” I tell him nervously not knowing what Molly’s reaction will be.
We drive for ten minutes in silence before he pulls the car down a street that seems to have a few pubs that are just on closing time. Young inebriated patrons are lining the street, and I glance at Kace wondering what his thought process is.
He parks the car and takes a deep breath. “Okay, stay in the car, don’t get out for anything.”
Furrowing my brows, I let out an exacerbated gasp while he opens his door. “Kace!” I murmur. “Kace,” I almost yell again but he’s gone and shutting the door before I can even register. I groan and turn in my seat to watch him move off into the crowd. I feel open and vulnerable in the car by myself but he hasn’t gone far and he walks with the crowd and clumsily bumps into a drunk guy. I chew on my bottom lip as the guy turns to Kace to yell at him, but takes in his size and quickly decides to leave it as he scurries off in a drunken haze. Kace turns and heads back toward the car confusing me. I have no idea what he’s doing as he opens the driver’s door. I shake my head as he climbs in, quickly starting the car and pulling off back down the road with a slight smirk on his face. I huff, crossing my arms over my chest as my brows crease so close together I’m sure they’re joined.
“Umm, you gonna tell me what the hell that was about?”
He pulls down a side street, pulling it to a stop parking it against the curb. He glances at me sideways with a cocky smirk reaching into his pocket, pulling out a cell and throws it to me. I fumble to catch it and gasp.
“What the? How did you? When? I’m confused?”
He chuckles. “The guy I bumped into.”
My eyes open wide. “You stole it?”
“We need it, Lily,” he winces and slumps his shoulders.
I nod and swallow hard. “True, and I guess he was super drunk so he probably could have lost it in his stupor.”
His lips turn up in a slight smile. “Exactly. Let’s just hope it doesn’t have a fingerprint ID on it.”
I gnaw on my bottom lip and swipe the screen to see it doesn’t even have a pin code. Smirking, I giggle and show Kace. He shakes his head rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, kids these days. Security is so important.”
I nod and purse my lips. “Just happy we don’t have to mess around with trying to figure out a code.”
“It would have been one, two, three, four, with the look of that guy.”
I laugh and tilt my head. “Probably, I should—”
“Yeah.”
I dial in Molly’s number, and she groans as she answers. “Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing calling me this late? And if you’re not a hot guy I’m hanging up!”
Shaking my head, I sigh. “It’s me, Molly.”
“Lily?”
I sigh in relief when I hear her voice. Molly may be crazy and psychotic at times, but being away from my parents had been lonely and scary at first. Molly has become my rock. She tells me when I’m being stupid and isn’t afraid to stand up for me when my back’s against a wall. Just hearing her speak calms my body.
“Hey, Moll. I need a huge favor,” I say slowly. “I have to go away with Kace for a while, I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
“What do you mean you have to? Is he kidnapping you?” she asks frantically.
I laugh. “No. It’s better if you don’t know, but he’s going to look after me.” I look up at him, his eyes are focused on me, hardened with a vow of protection as he silently confirms my words. “He’ll keep me safe.”
“Lily, you’re scaring me. Safe from what?” The sound of desperation in her voice makes my heart sink. I want to tell her everything, try to explain so she won’t worry.
“The less she knows, the better,” Kace whispers softly, the hard look on his face changing to one of understanding as I attempt to console my best friend.
I clear my throat. “Kace wants to know if you’ll please look after Daisy?”
He pulls the phone slightly from my ear so we can both hear. “She’s in my apartment, the door is unlocked. There’s enough food there to last her for a while, and I’ll get some money to you for anything else,” Kace says loudly enough so she can hear through the receiver.
“Will she eat me?” Molly asks.
A smile touches the corner of Kace’s mouth. “She only attacks when told to or when she senses danger. You’ll be fine.”
Molly is silent for a minute, and I know she really doesn’t like this. That girl is talkative at the worst of times, the silence now tells me just how fearful she really is.
“Molly,” I murmur. “I’ll be okay. We’ll be back before you know it. Think of it as us going on a holiday for a bit.”
“A romantic holiday?” she prods.
I giggle, shaking my head.
“You’re going to fuck him aren’t you?”
“Molly!”
“You need t
o call and tell me if he’s any good. And how big it is…”
Anddd she’s back.
I avoid looking at Kace, but I can feel him smirking beside me. “Okay, we’re done. We need to go now.”
She groans, “Spoil sport. Okay, I’ll watch the dog. But tell him he owes me. I will take payment in orgasms for my best friend.”
“Goodbye, Molly!”
“Love you,” she calls sweetly before we hang up.
I stare at the phone for a minute. “She’s such a pain in the ass.” I laugh awkwardly, trying to fight through some of the tension I can feel swirly between our bodies.
“She’s definitely unique,” he agrees in amusement.
A small breeze whips through the open window and I shudder, pulling my sweatshirt around my body.
“Come on, we need to get going.” He squeezes my hand with his, and I wind up the window.
He pulls off his jacket and then places it over my lap. I want to tell him I’m fine, but the heat from it instantly warms my body inside the cold car, and I relax into the seat.
He gazes at me longingly, smiles, then starts the car quickly pulling back onto the empty street. By this stage, I can tell he’s heading out of Washington. We drive through small surrounding suburbs and soon hit the open road.
“Where are we going?” I ask, turning my head to him and leaning it against the headrest.
His eyes stay focused on the road. The occasional car flashes by but for the most part, it’s just us lighting up the darkness. “I don’t know.”
“How long will we be gone for?”
“I don’t know,” he answers again.
I’m beginning to become frustrated. “Will we have to keep running from them?”
“Lily…” I guess so is he, “…I don’t know. Okay?”
I clench his jacket in my fingers. “At least tell me this… why is this happening?”
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and his eyes continue to avoid even a glance at me.
“We get orders,” he says through gritted teeth. “We get orders. We follow them. We don’t ask questions.” He exhales sharply out his nose, like an angry bull. “But I just disobeyed an order.”
I tuck his jacket in around my legs, not sure if I’m actually cold or whether it’s just the feeling of Kace around me, filling me with comfort and safety. It feels almost like a protective shield.
“What does this all have to do with me?”
He doesn’t answer right away. And the longer he stays quiet, the more I feel my hand itching to reach out and pull the door handle. Maybe I should take my chances with the asphalt rather than hear what he has to say?
“The order I disobeyed… was you.”
A shudder runs down my spine. “This is all because of me?”
He shakes his head, turning to look at me for the first time since we got back in the car. His eyes are so expressive, so beautiful yet so haunting.
Shadows fall across his face, but they seem to sparkle even in the small amount of light in the car. “At first, I thought it was,” he answers honestly, before moving his eyes back to the road. “You’re so exquisite, so smart, and so strong. Even before we spoke, I could feel a pull toward you that my mind couldn’t comprehend.”
My body buzzes at his admission, my senses all becoming electric.
“When I was told who your father was, I felt like it made sense. You’d pulled me in purposely. The way you walked, the quirks you had, the way you acted around me… all a conscious effort to attract a man like me and draw me in.” His eyes flicked to mine again. “But it was all you. It was just you being you, and fuck…” I blush as he shifts in his seat as though he’s suddenly uncomfortable.
“Kace…” I whisper.
“When I realized, in the apartment tonight, that none of this was a lie. That this shit between us is real…” He scrubs across his jaw with his hand, and I make a snap decision, reaching over and taking it in mine. He looks down at our hands as I link our fingers together, giving him the support I feel like he needs. “There’s something else going on here, Lily. Something bigger than us.”
I swallow tightly, forcing out the words that scare the shit out of me. “Then we need to find out what.”
His eyebrows raise and a smirk touches the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, we do.”
I wake up and move my hand to rub at my eyes, realizing that it’s still clutched in Kace’s. We’re still driving, though I’m not sure where we are. The landscape isn’t familiar, and I feel slightly disorientated. I blink my eyes, they’re heavy with sleep. But as I look over at Kace, he seems as sharp as a knife, like we’re out for a casual drive in the countryside.
I lick my lips as I take my time, admiring him. His jaw is chiseled and square with a light brush of growth lining it. His features seem so perfect, too perfect to be real, but I know they are. I’ve felt his lips on mine, and they’re soft and gentle. A total contrast to the hard exterior he portrays.
His usually perfect hair is in a slight disarray, almost as though he’s run his fingers through it over and over. My hand itches to do the same.
I have to wonder what makes him this way? What happened for him to be involved in this life he lives?
I knew he’d taken lives before. I’d had my doubts, but after last night I believe every word he’s told me.
I should be scared.
But I’m not.
He may have stolen the lives of others, people who he said had done bad things. But when I’m around him, I feel like I’m more alive than ever. It’s almost as though every breath he takes, fills my lungs with air.
He’s made a huge sacrifice in order to keep me safe. Not following the rules and pushing away from his friends—his people, his team.
“Was Luca really going to shoot you?” I ask, my voice still rough and filled with sleep. He doesn’t startle at my question, of course, he already knows I’m awake.
“If he had wanted to shoot me, he would have,” he answers, a twinge of pain in his words.
“So why didn’t he?”
He leans his elbow against the window ledge, his thumb sweeping softly over the back of my hand almost as though the gesture settles his apprehension a little. “Luca and I have been best friends for over six years. But it wasn’t an easy road to get to where we are… or were.”
I sit silently, giving him a moment and waiting for him to continue.
“Luca was young when he was put on my team. He was good, really good, but also really cocky.” He smiles. “He has this strange need to be hilarious all the time.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I noticed.”
Kace chuckles and I smile at the sound of his deep laughter. “I take my job seriously. My team is my responsibility. I need to make sure that not only do they know what they’re doing, but that they all come out of the situations we’re thrown into in one piece.” He shakes his head. “We clashed. I tried to have him thrown out on more than one occasion, but my superiors forced me to keep him on, telling me over and over what an asset he would be.”
“And he proved them right.”
“We were sent on a mission. It was meant to be simple… get in, get out. Job done.” His lips purse. “It wasn’t simple. These people had more high-tech gear than any of us had anticipated. They saw us coming a mile away, and they were waiting.”
I tense up, even though I know the outcome had to have been good since he’s here and breathing. But just thinking about Kace in danger makes my head cloudy and my heart ache.
“I took a bullet to the side of my neck and two to my leg. I was lying on the ground in a dead zone, my men huddled behind barriers at my rear, and theirs ahead outnumbering us more than two to one.” His hand grips mine a little harder as though he’s reliving the pain. “I should have died there. But Luca being the cocky asshole that he was, gathered my men and created a distraction while he ran out into the middle of a fucking battlefield to get me.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
/>
Kace smirks. “Fucker threw me over his shoulder and ran back to cover with a shot to the arm and a bullet wedged in his shin. You know you can trust someone with your life when they risk theirs for you.”
I can’t help but stare at him in awe. “Seriously, how are you guys still alive?”
He grins. “We have highly developed medical supplies, stuff that’s only available to special operations and the military.”
I frown. “Shit like that could save lives in the real world, Kace.”
He shrugs. “We save hundreds of lives every single day by stopping these assholes.”
I screw up my nose. I can’t really argue with that hence I shake it off.
“So after everything you guys have been through, he’s just going to come after you and hunt you down?”
Kace sighs and turns to me. “He’s just doing his duty, Lily. I can’t hold that against him just because I’ve failed to do mine.”
I turn and look out the window. “His duty sucks,” I murmur in frustration.
He squeezes my hand, drawing my attention back to him. “If I can convince him that there’s something else going on, then we have a chance. I know he’ll listen to me, but only if we have proof.” He settles back into his seat, muttering to himself. “I just have to figure out what that something else is.”
I use my free hand to tuck Kace’s jacket back in around my legs as it must have slipped off while I was sleeping. “If we’re on the run with no phones, how are we meant to find out anything?”
“There are ways,” he answers simply. “Burner phones are reasonably untraceable. And if I can get to my assets before the Seven do, we can hopefully get some information and figure this crap out.”
His thumb begins rubbing my hand again soothingly, and I stay quiet.
I know I need to trust Kace. He’s come this far, betrayed his team to keep me out of harm’s way. So I just need to remind myself that he’s here. And while he’s here, everything will be all right.
It’s around seven a.m. when we pull into the outskirts of civilization.
Kace spots a motel and eases the car into the parking lot. He turns the engine off and releases a long breath. “It should be safe to rest here for a bit,” he says even though his eyes seem more alert than ever. “Come on.”