by Leslie North
"And set the entire police force on your trail," Max provided the conclusion of her story for her. "So you've said."
"It's not just that," Lola was quick to respond. "Given his joint occupation of older brother and civil protector, he's naturally paranoid. The reason I have an older model of phone is because none of the newer ones have the easy backdoor he needed to install a tracking device."
The bedroom fell silent as her implication sank in. Lola's throat tightened, and her heart pounded so loudly that she was certain Max would hear it and call her out on her nervous pulse alone. Had she provided enough details to back up her lie? Had it been too much? God, she hoped McGinger wasn’t a McTechGuy.
Max studied her. His eyelids tightened; his blue eyes raked her intently, likely gauging her body language for any sort of tell. Lola minimized her blinks and waited.
Their impasse ended when a buzzing sound resonated from his front pocket. Max held off for a breath longer before withdrawing her commandeered cell phone with a sigh of defeat. She didn't think it was possible, but her heartbeat doubled, maybe even tripled its pace at the sight of her brother's name lighting up the screen. They spoke daily, often multiple times per day. She never thought the day would come when she desired a conversation with Jack as intensely as she did now.
"If what you're saying is true, you need to tell your brother you're okay," Max instructed her slowly. "Put his mind at ease. Convince him that you'll be away from your phone for a bit, at least for the next twenty-four hours. If you don't act up or raise suspicion, I'll let you check in with him again in the morning. Agreed?"
"Yes." She could scarcely breathe the word. She was so close now… so close…
"I broke your trust when I tied you up," Max continued. "And I want to regain it now, but that means I'm placing my safety and the safety of my client in your hands. I hope you understand what this means. I'm making the first overture here to rebuilding trust. Please don't make me regret it."
The ball of guilt began to shift upward and reshape around her heart—too tender, her mother always said. She wiggled it back down past her hardened resolve as he passed her the phone. This wasn't the time to mourn trust or tentative friendships lost. This was the time to act, to save herself.
Lola flipped open the phone and raised it to her ear. "Hello? Jack?" Her voice quivered when she spoke his name.
"Lola? Jesus, I've been trying to call you all day. You really had me worried for a second there—"
"Jack!" she exclaimed, darting a panicked look at Max before she could stop herself.
The man froze in his chair. It was possible he recognized her intention then, but his half-second paralysis at her betrayal was all she needed to see it through to completion.
"Jack, I've been kidnapped! I'm being held against my will! The address is—"
Max dove for her.
Lola squeezed her eyes shut.
Chapter 5
Max wrenched the cell phone from Lola’s grasp. In one swift movement, he snapped it in half at its hinge.
"Hey!" Lola clambered off the bed as he strode out of the room and into the adjoining bathroom. "Don't!" she shrieked as she threw herself at him. "No—"
But her efforts were in vain. Max flung the broken remains of the phone into the sink and wrenched the tap on, drowning the device in a deluge of scalding hot water. He snatched Lola by the wrists to prevent her from burning herself as she reached for it.
"No! No!" she sobbed.
He hated everything he knew would come next—the revised plans, dealing with Baudlin’s I-told-you-so French tirades—but she had forced his hand. He turned away from the sink and caught Lola around the waist, hauling the woman up and over his shoulder as he carried them both out of the bedroom. She beat her fists against his back as if he had lugged her straight out of the Neolithic Era and into the present day. He brought the sole of his boot up and kicked the door of the bedroom open, almost hard enough to splinter it.
"Baudin!" he hollered.
Baudin’s room light switched on. His door swung open. The French man stood naked in his emaciated, free-balling glory, scrubbing his eyes in an exaggerated show of having been woken from a deep sleep.
A reflex of nausea bubbled in Max’s stomach. He looked away to prevent it from developing into a full-blown hurl.
"Oui? Already on the sex games?"
"Ohmigosh!"
The exclamation of shock had barely cleared Lola's lips when Max angled himself between them to spare her the sight of Baudin's junk. Hands she clapped over her eyes to screen her vision were a welcome improvement from the fists that had been pulverizing his back a moment before.
"We've been compromised." His words were articulate despite Max's inability to relax his jaw. He should have known better than to trust the woman he had unwillingly taken hostage. He would not have acted differently had he been in her situation. It had been arrogant of him to assume that she might feel inclined a truce now that they had a rapport.
"Ah." Baudin did not sound at all surprised by this. Max filed away the other man's tone of voice to examine more in-depth later.
"Get some clothes on," Max ordered. "I'll grab the bug-out bags. Meet in the driveway in five."
"Let go of me!" Lola shouted as he carried her with him into the hallway.
Max threw open the closet with one hand and dragged out his reserve bags.
"Please," said Lola. "Think this through. You don't have to take me with you. End this cycle of hostage-taking here and now."
"That's a hard no from me," Max said as he looped the bag straps around one burly arm and yanked them out the front door. "You've forced my hand here. I still don't know if your story checks out. Even if I trusted you enough to let you out of my sight, I have no idea who will show up here now. You could be in danger."
"What are you talking about?" Lola moaned in partial defeat as he deposited her, along with the bags, to the sedan in the driveway. "How is being forced to flee with two men I don't know any less dangerous than waiting here for my brother and the police?"
"Monsieur Sterling is afraid of what they might do to you if it is revealed you have seen me." Baudin manifested as a tall, gangly shadow in the darkness.
Max opened the trunk and threw their bags in the back; then, slightly more gently, he deposited Lola in the backseat of the car. The illusion of her complacency broke when she kicked out at him suddenly with her foot, but Max had anticipated a struggle. He caught her ankle firmly and forced her leg back into the car. One her limbs cleared the threshold, he slammed the door, folded his massive form in behind the driver's seat, and threw the child lock.
He glared at Baudin when the other man finally deigned to join them in the car. Not for the first time, he wished he could put a muzzle on the man. They hadn't had any guests at the safe house, obviously, so he had in no way anticipated how freely the hitman would dispense information.
"What do you mean?" Lola demanded. "I haven't seen anything!"
"On the contrary, madame, you have seen the infamous Adrien Baudin. Every glorious inch.”
Max rolled his eyes.
"Ew."
Despite his resolve to remain tough and focused, Max allowed an inward grin. No doubt being around a group of kids all day cultivated her outburst. He could almost feel Lola's shudder of remembrance from the backseat. And as much as Baudin's topic of conversation set Max on edge, it distracted Lola. He put the car into reverse and peeled out of the driveway. They shot off into the night, past the wreckage of Lola’s car and toward one of the hidden backroads.
"And who is Adrien Baudin?" said Lola. “Besides a hairy exhibitionist?”
Max smirked. If he wasn’t careful, he would fall in love with Lola Reyes right there.
Baudin looked genuinely affronted at her question. As far as Max was concerned, the French man’s reaction was further evidence of the man's affinity for pretense. Baudin placed a hand over his wounded heart and turned in his seat to look at Lola.
&nb
sp; “Who is Adrien Baudin, she says,” Baudin repeated, as if she had questioned the Messiah at a pool party that served bread and fish. “Madame, I am the most famous—”
“Hitman.” If it was going to come out anyway, Max may as well be the one to deliver the news. “He’s a contract killer.”
Lola, who had been leveraging at the backdoor handle fruitlessly, froze.
"I am a reformed assassin of the highest caliber and integrity." Baudin drew his hand away from his heart. Max didn't miss Baudin’s black glare aimed directly at his temple. The hitman didn't like his dramatics cut short.
"So you're a snitch," said Lola.
Baudin went rigid in his seat.
This time, Max smiled outwardly. Definitely love.
"Why else would you need the services of a safe house?" said Lola. "What's more, who would offer to help a murderer like you, unless you offered up information that could prevent others from being harmed in the future?"
"This is not having the effect I anticipated," Baudin sank lower in the passenger seat and crossed his arms in a huff. To Max, he looked a little like an overgrown schoolboy who wanted his disapproval of time-out to be known to all outside observers.
"This is serious," Lola muttered to herself in the back. "If what you're saying is true, then I'm in serious trouble."
"More than you know." Max cranked the wheel to turn them out onto the highway. "If I had left you back at the safe house, who knows what sort of interrogation you might have been forced into, even by your guys in blue. Baudin has former friends on both sides of the police line that would love to get their hands on him."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
Max raised his eyes from the road momentarily to meet hers in the rearview mirror. Though her expression was hard, the overall symmetry of her round, pretty face compelled him to keep staring. Her full lips puckered, as if the news of Baudin's real identity was a bitter pill she had been forced to swallow.
Max could sympathize with her confusion, at least. Was he really still trying to earn her trust after her stint with the phone? Unless Rockwell had an answer for him, it looked increasingly like they would be spending the next few days until Baudin's testimony together. It would certainly make his job easier if she knew the basics of what was going on and agreed to let him keep her close.
“It benefits everyone in this car for you to understand the stakes."
“Death.”
Her word coiled hard in his chest. She was an innocent who had stumbled into a minefield. “I prefer to think of it as life.”
“La Vie,” muttered Baudin, as if he had earned a vote.
Lola sat back and threaded her hands. Now both passengers in his car looked resigned to their fates. Resignation, Max could work with. Maybe Baudin and Lola both felt dislike for him, but his time spent as an Army captain had given him a thick skin when it came to the opinions of others. Obedience to him, in this instance, would get them all through this night, alive.
If Max was being honest with himself, he was glad for the diversion switching locations provided. It gave him a mission, something to occupy his mind and distract him from the fact that he betrayed the trust of a woman who needed his help. When she recited Dr. Seuss, he wanted to slide beneath her teacher-like loafers and imprison himself in the treads like a used wad of gum, where he felt he should be after what he put her through.
Lola Reyes had told the truth.
Max needed a diversion to keep from wanting to make it up to her, in every conceivable way. His mind tracked back to her reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t meant to look, but the dash of milky curves had snagged his eye. Her hourglass figure—what little he saw of it—called to him in a primal way he hadn’t felt in a long time. Strict adherence to duty had a way of suppressing needs. But the bastards tended to come out at the most inopportune times. He shifted in the driver’s seat to ease the discomfort of his escalating hardness.
Baudin rolled down his window.
Max shot him a look, but the hitman only lit up another cigarette. It surprised him to see the man acting out of courtesy for a change. It was more like Baudin to hotbox those unlucky enough to be his fellow passengers until someone raised an objection, at which point he would loudly complain about American culture.
Max glanced into the rearview mirror. He wondered if Lola was the reason for Baudin’s behavioral change. She stared out into the night, occasionally trying the door handle to see if the lock had magically decided to give.
Baudin heaved a cloud of smoke and pulled out his Rosary.
At least he remembered the directive to pack light.
Max watched Baudin fondle his prayer beads until his thoughts drifted back to sixty alternate things he would prefer to touch. All of them occupying the back seat.
Silence ruled the drive.
Max stopped only once to refill the tank and to guzzle a high-octane stimulant that tasted like a diseased bastard’s mucus in a can. Despite orders to stay put, Baudin got out of the car as Max refueled. Baudin leaned back against the vehicle and jogging his leg, rattling off something in French that contained the word pisser.
His first instinct was to tell Baudin to hold it. Max glanced up. Stars lifted. The horizon glowed orange. They had been on the road for almost seven hours.
"I'm not leaving her in the car while I babysit you."
“Monsieur, I do not need you to—how do they say?—shake the dew off the liver.”
“Lily.”
“American men name their bite after une fleur?”
“Never mind.”
"If you insist on coming, wake mademoiselle and make her come with us."
Lola dozed in the backseat. Max couldn't see her face, but from outside of the vehicle, he could see where the crown of her head lay nestled against the window. The day's ordeal had finally caught up with her.
At the same time, he didn't like the idea of leaving her alone and vulnerable inside the car. In fact, he flat rejected the notion. She was as much his responsibility now as Baudin was.
Max opened the driver's door and eased a knee onto the seat, his eyes trained on the occupant in the back. Lola breathed shallowly, but regularly. A fringe of dark eyelashes adorned each cheek. While it was Max's opinion by this point that the woman's concussion wasn't anything serious, he still intended to wake her, just to be safe.
He reached into the back, but something stalled his hand. Instead of jostling her shoulder, his fingers shifted her hair back from where it threatened to trail into her mouth. She didn't stir as he gently brushed his fingertips along her face. Why had he done that? Was he only taking advantage of a moment he knew would never come again? She saw him as the enemy, no matter his intentions. He didn't know how to express who he was to her without endangering his job and the life of the man he swore to protect.
Max backed out of the car and glanced over the hood at Baudin. The hitman watched him with a dull expression. Clearly he hadn't seen Max's covert caress of Lola's face, otherwise he would have had something annoying to say about it.
"You can use the restroom," Max said. "That's it. No other pit-stops or shopping sprees. We don't resupply until we make it to our destination."
"Oui, capitaine."
Max knew he would be hearing more on the subject of cigarettes within the hour.
He followed Baudin around the side of the car toward the bathroom. He posted himself at the gas station pump halfway between the men's room and the car, his attention evenly divided between the two.
"Hurry back," he called.
Baudin raised his middle finger and vanished behind the door.
Prick.
Sixty seconds, Max promised himself. That's all he gets.
Fifty-eight seconds in, Baudin exited the building, zipping his fly. The hitman lifted his head, looking smug with himself before his expression caved.
"Merde!" Baudin pointed at something over Max’s shoulder.
Max spun in time to spot Lola spill out of the drive
r's seat. Her knees hit pavement. She shot a panicked look their direction, but she was up again in the next instant and running. He had taken his eyes off the car for maybe ten of those sixty seconds—more than enough time to leave an opening.
"Shit!" Max translated.
Chapter 6
Pretending to be asleep for the better part of an hour wasn't easy. In a classroom full of elementary school kids who had to rehearse a school play every year, Lola had always been the worst actress in the room. Standing offstage with a script in her hands, ready to deliver dropped lines to pint-sized Grace Kellys and Laurence Oliviers had always been her best role.
Feigning sleep became exponentially more difficult when she felt Max's hand on her cheek.
She didn’t have to open her eyes to confirm her suspicion—hadn't she already felt Max’s touch multiple times? Her heart had slipped out of its near-comatose rhythm at his unexpected caress, and almost gave away her sleeping subterfuge. Thankfully he hadn't lingered long. Otherwise he would have noticed she stopped breathing.
In stark contrast, her breaths now rivaled the speed of her feet.
"Lola!" Max shouted from behind her.
She didn't glance over her shoulder to acknowledge him. She knew he was gaining on her, and double-dipped into her adrenaline to produce an extra terrified burst of speed. Max was a large man. It was possible his muscled frame would work against him in this instance, but Lola wasn't exactly a marathon runner herself. In fact, she couldn't remember the last time she hit the gym. She had so many responsibilities—lesson plans, grading, faculty meetings, taking care of her cats, calling her brother, cooking dinner for her neighbor—she never made time for herself. But if she got out of this alive, she vowed to put aside the time to get back into shape.
Lola sprinted for the highway, legs and arms pumping. She abandoned the idea of going into the gas station for fear of trapping herself and the clerk inside. Max Sterling would have no reservations in dragging her back out, and taking the clerk with them under the guise of keeping safe. Considering there was at least one seat still unoccupied in the back of the car, the outcome didn't seem farfetched.