by Dallas Cole
“I’m getting Elena back,” I shout back to him. “Cy. Jagger. Block the exit from the bypass at the top, if you can.”
“Doing our best,” Jagger replies over the comms.
The wind whips through my hair as I crouch over the roof of the Camaro and hang on for dear life. I’m gripping the window frame of Drazic’s door with my left hand and of my door with the right. All I have to do is get Elena out of Rory’s car. Nothing else matters.
“Force him onto the bypass!” I shout again.
“I’m trying, I’m trying!”
Drazic revs the engine and surges up alongside Rory. We’re almost to the bypass entrance at the mountain road’s base. It’s steep and gravelly, mostly intended to help smaller cars get around slow trucks and rock slides safely on the main road. He starts to curve wide to force Rory onto the turn.
“I won’t be able to stay alongside him up the pass,” Drazic shouts.
“That’s okay. Just get close enough for me to jump.”
“Jump?!?”
Rory’s right alongside us. I bend my knees and elbows, and then fling myself for the Datsun’s roof.
For a moment, I am weightless. I am utterly insane. Willing to do anything for Elena. And it makes me feel so alive.
Then I slam onto the Datsun’s roof, my teeth rattling in my head. Rory jerks to the side, trying to shake me, but I swing my hand forward and catch hold of the door frame on Elena’s side. “Duck!” I scream at her, then bash my fist against the glass.
Rory swears inside the car, and takes the turn onto the bypass as sharp as he possibly can. I grip the edge of the doorframe for dear life as jagged teeth of glass dig into my palm.
“I’m coming up behind you. What do you need?” Drazic asks.
“Just keep the pressure on. And get ready to brake when I call for it.”
“Brake? Why?”
I grimace and pull myself farther up onto the Datsun’s roof. “You’ll see.”
Rory’s swerving wildly along the narrow pass, still trying to shake me, still unable to shift to lose us. But I’m not giving up. Just a little farther . . . I stretch my hand down and yank the passenger door’s handle open from the inside.
“Elena. Can you hear me?”
Her muffled response is enough for me.
The door swings open and scrapes along the stone wall. “Jump!” I scream at her. “Drazic, brake!”
The door flies off the car as Rory tries to wedge us against the wall, but he’s too late. Elena drops out of the passenger’s side and onto the road, rolling, her hands still bound together. Rory’s moving too quick to stop, not without winding up face-first in the canyon wall. Drazic pumps the brakes on the Camaro and comes to a stop in front of Elena. How fast were we going? It couldn’t have been more than twenty-five miles an hour. Thirty, tops. She’ll be okay. Won’t she?
I try to look back over my shoulder, but my hand slips. I’m losing purchase on what’s left of the doorframe. Please, please let Elena be okay.
But there’s something I need to do for myself, too.
I pull myself to the right side of the roof and slide down into the passenger’s seat with a groan.
“Fuck you!”
Rory swings a punch at me from the driver’s seat, but he’s too worried about keeping the car on the bypass; there isn’t enough force behind it. I shake it off and reach for the steering wheel. We yank back and forth, and I bring up one knee to try to jam his hands. His gear stick’s missing—Elena must have wrenched it out to mess up his speed. Good girl.
“You piece of shit,” Rory snarls. “You have no loyalty. No sense of pride. You’re just a fucking criminal, too.” He laughs hysterically as the tires graze the edge of the sheer drop on the driver’s side of the pass.
“I’ll never be your kind of criminal. A dirtbag.”
“No? You already are. And you always will be. You’re nothing but trash.”
Nothing but trash. What I always feared—why I made Elena that bullshit promise, instead of telling her how I really felt for her. Because I never thought I’d deserve her.
Well, fuck that shit. If I don’t deserve her after this, no one does.
I jerk the wheel toward the left, pushing us closer toward the cliff. Rory shoves an elbow deep into my ribs.
“When this is over,” Rory says, “I’m going to enjoy watching you die. Very, very slowly. The price of betrayal.”
“I won’t give you the pleasure. This ends here. Because I’m loyal to my real family. They’ve earned that from me.” I wrap both hands around the gear stick, my right palm slippery with blood. “Wanna know what you’ve earned?”
Rory takes his eyes off the road for that split second. And that’s my chance.
I grab the loose gear stick from the floorboards and drive it into Rory’s ribs.
“What the fuck?” he shrieks, wind rushing out of him. Again the tires rumble as we skirt against the edge. While he frantically tries to twist the wheel back into place, I jam the gearstick right into his gut.
Gravel flies around us as we reach the edge, and then the car is airborne.
My stomach falls out from under me, but I am floating, floating. Bound to Rory McManus no more.
For a few fleeting seconds, I am free.
Chapter Twenty-five
Elena
The smell of smoke and burning rubber floods my nostrils. I can barely breathe under this awful canvas bag, but it’s nice to smell something other than my own breath for a moment. I’m slumped against the gravel of a road somewhere. Blood wells up on my knees, where my jeans have torn open from my roll, and on my elbows, scraped raw.
But I’m alive. And I’m free.
What about Lennox?
I wriggle my way up onto my knees and toss my head forward until the bag finally slides off. At first, it’s too dark to make sense of much, but the headlights from the car stopped behind me start to paint a picture. The car I jumped from is racing up ahead.
I look up just in time to see it careen over the side of the path and drop out of view.
“Lennox!” I scream, though the duct tape slapped over my mouth muffles me considerably. “Lennox! No!”
“Come on, Elena. Come on.”
My uncle’s arms wrap around me and hoist me to my feet. I try to shake him and run for the edge of the path, but he tackles me and drags me back.
“Don’t look. You’re safe now. That’s what matters.”
But he’s wrong. I collapse back to my knees. Lennox can’t be gone.
He’s survived far worse. He has to survive this, too.
*
I slump next to Uncle D in the hard plastic chairs of the Ridgecrest Community Hospital emergency department. The nurses patched up my road rash hours ago and treated me for the deep cuts on my wrists and ankles where the bunched-up duct tape had cut into it. I’ve already been interviewed by three different detectives. And still Lennox is in the operating suite.
They pulled him out of the passenger’s side of the Datsun with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a shattered left wrist from where he landed, roughly on top of Rory McManus. Rory was dead on arrival, thankfully. I watched them zip up the body bag on what was left of him, just to make sure.
Now I’m a bundle of raw nerves, too on edge to sleep but too tired to make any sense. Cyrus and Jagger are huddled in one corner of the waiting area, giving me space with my uncle. Not that he and I are on the best of terms. Only a near-death experience and our shared anxiety are banding us together right now.
“Elena.” Drazic slings an arm around my shoulder, trying to comfort me. He was always a great father figure, but “comforting” was never his strong suit. “Djevojka.”
I grimace. Whatever he wants to say, I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it. Especially when I don’t know what’s going to happen to Lennox. When I’m waiting for answers.
“You were right, djevojka.”
A smile works its way across my face. “Was I?”
He nods. “Lennox only did what he thought was for the best. I just . . . wish there could have been a better way.”
“That’s what he does.” I sigh. “He bargains with the Cartwrights to help his grandmother. He fights the McManuses to help out strangers. He has no problems sacrificing himself for a greater cause. I just—” I lean against my uncle’s shoulder. No use being mad at him right now. Not when life is so fleeting. “I wish he’d see his value, too.”
“Yeah. He’s a good guy, all right. Maybe to a fault. But I know he’ll always do the right thing.” He grins and pats my arm. “I can see why you love him. Why you always have.”
My cheeks burn as I bury my face in his side. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
Uncle D pats my hand. “Because you’ve got a good heart, too. Anything you want—I’ll support.”
“You mean it?” I ask. Hope flutters in my chest.
He nods, confident. “We’re family, after all. And Lennox is our family, too.”
“Mister Drazic?”
Uncle D and I both snap to attention as a petite doctor approaches us, clipboard in her hand. My throat closes up. Her expression is severe, and it’s not putting me at ease.
“Mister Solt is out of surgery,” she says. “Everything went well.”
“Oh, thank god.” I squeeze Uncle D’s hand. Cyrus and Jagger approach from behind the doctor and flash thumbs up.
“He’s still resting, and it will take several weeks for his ribs to heal up, but . . . he’s going to be all right.”
*
“He might not wake up for another hour or so,” the nurse cautions me, as I settle in beside Lennox’s bed.
I lace my fingers in his, taking care not to get tangled in his IV cord. “Doesn’t matter. I want to be here.”
The nurse smiles. “I’ll give you some privacy.” He jerks the bed curtains shut, leaving me in peace with Lennox.
For a few minutes, I just watch him sleeping, his breath rising and falling against the gentle backdrop of the heart monitors’ chirps. Even with his broken nose swaddled in gauze and dried blood crusted to his eyebrows, he’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. His dark lashes flutter against his cheeks. I want to kiss each individual eyelash. Kiss every inch of him to take away his pain.
Then his fingers tighten around mine and he slowly comes awake.
“Elena.” He smiles, then winces from the strain of smiling. “Ow.”
“Careful.” I run my fingers against his forehead with my free hand. “Is there any part of you that doesn’t hurt?”
He ponders for a moment. “My lips aren’t too bad. Could use a kiss, though.”
“Well, if it’s for the sake of recovery . . .”
I lean over him and brush my lips to his. He barely returns it, but I know he’s doing the best he can. Warmth surges through my body.
“That was very stupid, you know. What you did.” I settle back in my chair, still gripping his hand. “And very brave.”
Lennox manages a feeble laugh. “Hey. I resemble that remark.” He’s quiet for a while. I start wondering if he’s fallen back asleep, but then he jerks toward me, all traces of his smile gone. “Rory. Is he . . . ?”
“Dead.” I clench my jaw. “I saw the body myself. You’re safe.”
“No. Not while Mama’s still out there.”
I glance over my shoulder. Uncle D, Cyrus, and Jagger already promised we’d work in shifts to protect Lennox while he recovered. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You just focus on healing—”
“No. Elena, you don’t understand. She’s just as relentless as Rory was. Just as ruthless.” He exhales; behind him, the heart rate monitor creeps up in tempo. “She won’t let this stand. She’s going to fight back.”
“I know. But . . .” I take a deep breath. I don’t want to get his hopes up. But if there’s any chance . . . “I might have an idea for that, too.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. In time.” I smile, and stroke the side of his face. “For now, I want you to get your rest. Heal up. We need you healthy, all right?”
Lennox sighs contentedly and leans into my touch. “Anything you say, beautiful.”
“Anything?” I grin. “Then how about you cut out the ‘I’m not worthy’ crap? You’re more deserving than any man in the world.”
Lennox laughs to himself. “Fine. Deal.” He squeezes my hand tighter as his eyes close again. “I love you, Elena.”
“I love you, too.”
*
The doctors force Lennox to stay off his feet for two weeks, and not a second later, he’s ready to go. Our first stop: Cartwright Industries headquarters, on the edge of town. We storm through the staircase and past Amber’s desk, on a mission. It’s past time for this. And our bargaining chip has never been better.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Amber leaps up from her desk and hobbles after us on her five-inch platform heels. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t go in there!”
“Watch me.” I grab the handle to Alexander Cartwright’s heavy oak door.
Amber slams against the door to pin it in place and shoots me a venomous glare. “Lennox. Elena. You can’t do this. You fucking can’t.” Her eyes well with tears. “I told your little band of thugs what happened, okay? We’re square.”
Lennox whirls on her, scarily calm. Even I jump back from the dark expression on his face. “We’ll never be square.” His voice is thin as wire. “You will always owe me. For every single day that Troy should be here, but isn’t. So stay the fuck out of my way.”
Amber curls her hands into fists, groans, and backs away. “Fine. But Daddy isn’t going to be happy about it.”
Lennox grins. “I think you might be surprised, when he hears what we have to offer him.”
I yank open the heavy door to Alexander Cartwright’s office. He stands up from his desk at the far end of the chamber, which is all gaudily decorated in marble and onyx and gilded frames. His tan practically glows in the dim lighting as he stalks down the length of the room, meeting us in the middle.
“Mister Solt. What is the meaning of all this?”
“You owe me,” Lennox says. “Big time.”
Mr. Cartwright smiles thinly. “I’m afraid you must be mistaken. Any perceived debt between us was surely settled quite some time ago.”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“You can’t run us out of town,” I say. “We aren’t going anywhere. So stop trying to blacklist Lennox.”
Mr. Cartwright narrows his eyes at me. “And why on earth would I want to do that? Life would be so much better for all of us if you would just . . . vanish into the night.” He spreads his hands like a magician.
Lennox snorts. “I’ve got a better idea.”
The men stare at each other for several seconds. Then, slowly, Mr. Cartwright turns toward me. “You’re Mister Drazic’s niece, right? Drazic Muscleworks? A pity you had to be caught up in all of this.”
I return his frosty smile. “Why don’t you just hear him out?”
“Fine.” Mr. Cartwright clasps his hands. “I’m listening.”
“The McManuses have always been a problem for you, haven’t they? They blocked your bid for city council. Your efforts to expand.”
Mr. Cartwright’s lip curls back. “Mama has a certain insufferableness and tenacity to her. Yes, go on.”
“We can give you information,” I say. “Dirt on their entire operation. We can help you take them down. Cleanly. Legally.”
Mr. Cartwright drums his fingers against his lips. “And in exchange?”
No nonsense, then. Not that I expected anything less from him.
“Give me breathing room.” Lennox crosses his arms. “Don’t worry, I won’t spill Amber’s secret further, but . . . you’ve got to give me more latitude than you have.”
“And what is it that you need, exactly?” Cartwright asks.
“Funds,” I say.
Cartwright rolls his eyes. “Of course.”
>
“Nothing excessive. Enough to get the Muscleworks on solid financial footing. To settle my grams’s remaining medical bills. Enough that we can live, and not just scrape by.”
“And you’ll keep . . . your word?” Mr. Cartwright says, looking at me as he says it, even though he means it for Lennox.
“Everyone who matters to me knows the truth anyway.” Lennox shrugs. “I’ve got nothing left to gain.”
“Then I’ll see what I can do.”
*
The Camaro purrs beneath me like a contented panther. We are power and raw energy, working seamlessly together as I steer it into a tight turn. My body lifts up and away, pulling at the far edges of the turn, and then snaps back into the seat. Success.
I love a system I can figure out. Cars. Race tracks. Ways to dismantle a criminal organization and widespread corruption. Lennox. Slow down here, speed up there, pass that cocky asshole in the Mitsubishi right over here. There are rules to follow and parts to fit into place. But for all of that, I also find it freeing. I’m in control.
Jagger’s Mitsubishi, still dented on the driver’s side, closes in on me even as Nash up ahead starts to lag behind. Nash’s new car still needs some work. He’s taking the straightaways way too cautiously, not revving up nearly enough. I’m happy to do the work on it for him, now that he’s pulled his shit together. Hell, he even thanked Lennox for everything he’d done for me and our crew. Things will be awkward for a while longer there, but anything’s better than the way it was before.
Our family really is coming back together. And I’m coming out ahead of the way things were.
“All right, sexy.” Lennox whispers to me through my earpiece. “Just speed up past Nash and bring it home. You’ve got this.”
I throttle the engine and rocket ahead, leaving Jagger in my dust. I’m closing in on Nash, weaving to the left, trying to pull ahead, but I’m just a little too late. I finish a split-second behind Nash. I’ll take second place. Gives me something to aim for next.
We skid to a stop and line up in a semi-circle around the picnic bench at the rest stop, where Drazic, Cyrus, and Lennox wait. “Not bad,” Drazic says, as I hop out of the Camaro. “You almost looked like you knew what you were doing.”