Then a soft, female voice came from the back of the BMW. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”
What the fuck? What the actual fuck?! I looked in the mirror, didn’t say anything. Then I heard it again.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” A chill shot right down my spine. There was a girl in the car. She had been sleeping in the backseat. How did I not fucking see her there?
Gregor would kill her. He wouldn’t give it a second thought.
I looked in the mirror. I didn’t see anything. It was definitely a girl’s voice, though. Weary, drowsy and pretty confused. “I’m sorry, it was hot and I was so tired.”
Then in the mirror I saw her pretty face. Blearily, she rubbed her eyes and squinted as she pushed her face forward between the two seats. It was her. It was the slave girl. Oh, fuck! What the hell was I going to do now?
She had on a soft black dress, buttoned down the front. Her cheeks were bright and plump and her lips were bee-stung. From a distance, she was memorable. Up close, she was electrifying. There was a lot more about her than looks.
Playing for time, I said, “I’m really glad we ran into each other,” and my voice was as light and breezy as I could make it. “Can’t ever be bad news to meet a beautiful girl.” I thought about adding, I was really hoping I’d get to meet you, but I decided that could come off creepy. It was true, though.
Her eyes went wide. Her pretty mouth dropped open.
“Relax, sweetheart,” I said as calmly as I could. Like, Here we are, having a little ride. Isn’t that a nice surprise? I knew that it wasn’t going to do any good. Somebody tells you to calm down when you’re panicking, it only makes you panic more. Makes you trust them less. She shouted. Banged on the window.
A police siren whooped behind me.
“Who are you?!”
The cop flashed his red and blue lights. In the mirror, I saw him gesture with his arm. I didn’t know if he meant for me to pull over, or just to get out of the way.
There wasn’t much room for me to do either. Still, I raised a hand so he could see me acknowledge him and I shoved as far over to the right as I could. The guy in the Volvo beside me threw up his hands and made a face. I couldn’t hear him, but I thought I could guess what he was yelling. The cop was moving left.
“Who the fuck are you?” the slave girl shouted again. “Where are you taking me? Did Aileen give you her car?”
Now the look on her face was a kind of puzzled horror and the color was drained from her cheeks. It looked like shock could be setting in.
A rush of thoughts of what might happen to her if I let Gregor see her made me forget about the cop for a moment.
I didn’t know whether I should be more worried for her, or for myself. There was no way this was going to end well. For a minute there, I wondered if we might both be safest if I just got arrested. The situation was that bad.
The thought passed quickly, but with the slave girl shouting and banging and the cops all around me, I was feeling like the only cowboy left in a circle of burning wagons.
The only thing I might be able to influence right now was the girl.
“I know,” I told her with a smile, “you must hear a dozen of those every day.” With so much going on, it was hard to concentrate. It didn’t help that my mind was fixed on the buttons on the front of her dress.
Her face actually flushed. Her scent was sweet and lovely. Did she get lines like that every day? I wondered. She certainly could—she was gorgeous enough. An urge to protect her washed over me. That may have been due to the thoughts of what Gregor was going to do to her.
Here, in this car, she was in more danger than she could possibly know. More than I wanted to think about. But I had to figure a way to get her out of this without putting her in even more danger.
The cop was moving out and pulling alongside. Smiling, I made eye contact with the driver, looked at the traffic jamming up all around, then looked back and gave him a ‘what’re ya gonna do?’ shrug. His partner glared at me, gesturing with his fingers for me to get further over to the right. The guy in the Volvo wouldn’t have liked that.
“You’ve stolen the car!” the lovely slave girl hissed. She could sure pick her moments. “You’ve stolen Aileen’s car!” Just a little louder, and the cop would hear her. Still smiling at the cop, I watched as he nudged his way forward.
All around, the traffic was getting thicker and slower. Red and blue lights sparked behind me and in front.
She shouted, “I’ve been kidnapped!” A jolt of adrenaline pulsed through me.
I turned in the seat, looked around, and gave her the nicest, most confident smile I could. “Nobody’s been kidnapped. You going to be perfectly fine.”
“Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Her eyes widened further still. “What are you going to do to me? Let me go! Let me out!”
“Relax,” I told her steadily, “you’re going to be perfectly safe. You’re going to be fine. You’ve nothing to worry about.”
“You’re a car thief! I’ve been kidnapped by a car thief!” She turned to the window and started to bang on it with the side of her fist. “Help! Help! I’m being kidnapped!”
“I haven’t kidnapped you. If I had, if I were a kidnapper, what you’re doing would be the worst thing you can do.” Oh, brilliant, Ryan, I thought. How could that fail to calm and reassure her? Make the possible dangers a little plainer, why don’t you?
She stopped a moment. Then she banged on the window some more. Her face was getting red. I had not the first fucking clue what I was going to do with her.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” she demanded again.
Good question. I knew I couldn’t take her to the gang. Gregor would see her as a ‘loose end.’ Her fate would be short and dire, and mine could go the same way for bringing her. There was no way that I could simply let her go. She was bound to call the cops if I did, and then we would all be fucked. Her included.
Most of all, I needed to have her stay somewhere safe while I delivered the car and figured out what to do.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you somewhere safe.”
“What are you talking about? Last thing I knew, I was somewhere safe. What’s going on?” Her little fists banged on the seat and she started to reach forward.
“We’re stuck in some traffic,” I said. “I’m going to take you somewhere safe, and it’s all going to be fine.”
She turned to the window, pressed against the side, and banged her hand on the glass.
“Help! Help!” She shouted at the top of her voice. “I’m being kidnapped!”
“Would you stop that? You’ll attract attention.”
She stopped and looked at me. “Well, duh!”
“Nobody’s been kidnapped. Stop saying that. Just… chill out a second.”
And I had to get the car to Gregor. Like, now. I could take her to my apartment but she would just bust out. Probably call the cops. And she’d know where I live. No, that’s no good. I’d have to keep her somewhere else.
But wherever it was, she’d call the cops anyway. Good point. Whatever I did, wherever I left her, I’d better take her phone.
The lock-up garage would be a fine place, but it was just too far away. Besides, there was too much stuff in there. Too many tools. She’d have been able to break out too easily. Either that, or she’d do a whole lot of damage. I banged on the steering wheel.
“What is it, Ace?” There was an edge in her voice. “You look like you don’t know what to do. Have you even thought this through?”
“Look,” I growled, “I’ll think of something.”
“Yeah? What with?”
I glared at her face in the mirror. Now she had a smug gleam in her eyes. God, she was gorgeous, even more so when she was being a pain in my ass. No, couldn’t think about that now. I’d got too much to worry about already. This was going to take some figuring out.
There was a cop car with its lights on just one car to my left. She flung herself across to the corre
sponding window. I swerved to the right. There was an exit just up ahead.
She shouted, “Help!” and slapped the window with her palms.
I braked hard. She lurched forward. There was a gap in the traffic to my right, hardly enough space to slide through. I gunned the engine. She was thrown back in the seat and we were halfway to the exit ramp.
I had no idea what part of town this was going to dump me out in, but I had to get away from all of those cops.
The cop riding shotgun watched and pointed. We were on the ramp and heading down. He was too far away and too deep in traffic to do much about it.
As I was making it down the off ramp, the cop car’s door opened. The cop on my side got out and stepped along to speak to the guy in front of him. And I was gone. Heading straight for a mess of cloverleaf interchange, but we were moving. Slave girl was still banging on the window. A little kid in the back of a yellow SUV made a big ‘O’ with his mouth and pointed his finger as I passed on the inside.
His mom was on the phone up front and not listening to him at all. She even managed to bat her eyelids at me as we slid by and didn’t notice slave girl hammering on the window.
Still, there was the problem of what to do with her. Whatever I did, it would have to be fast. Time was burning away like a fuse.
====
•
She reached into her bag. Going for a phone or a gun, it didn’t make any difference. I looked hard in her eye. Directly. Not in the mirror. She froze. I held my eye on her like that for a few seconds.
I said, “Nu-uh,” and held up a finger. She gulped. I took the bag and dropped it in the passenger footwell. She was shocked. Before she had time to collect her thoughts, I took charge.
“What’s your name, beautiful?” I asked her. In haste, I may have overcooked the smooth charm.
She took a breath and said, “Is this going to be one of those cheesy, ‘so I know what to call you in my dreams,’ lines?” Man, I liked her recovering like that, I can’t deny it. I had her attention at least, and for a moment she quieted down.
•
====
Chapter Four
Hayley
MY HEART HAMMERED IN my chest as I looked in the mirror and caught a sardonic gleam in his eyes.
I shouted, “Stop the car! Let me out!”
He chuckled. He actually chuckled. “Soon enough.” He spoke slowly as he drove, slower and more calmly now we were moving out of the traffic jam. “There are some things I have to do first.”
Although his driving was way too fast and aggressive enough to flip your stomach, he handled the car like a professional. And it wasn’t even his. This guy obviously knew what to do behind a wheel, but it was clear that he hadn’t expected me to be here.
The look on his face when I’d asked him what he was planning to do with me made me damn sure he didn’t have the first clue.
When he turned in his seat, I got my first proper look at him. All of my insides boiled in a storm of confusion. I was afraid. He looked like a man who could do anything. But my first eye contact with him was also a thrill. He had the look of a very bad man. And in way too many good ways.
He gave me the searing smile, and then turned back to drive. He pulled us into a quiet, leafy little low-rise neighborhood.
He had the kind of gorgeous, thick black hair that your fingers would just be clawing for. They’d want to sink into it and tug. He was big. Built. Muscled, by the look of him. Tattoo ink snaked up his neck from under the soft, white linen collar of his shirt.
His dark, hooded eyes had a look that was somehow arrogant, sarcastic, and shy, all at the same time. And the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. Little dimples appeared when he grinned, which he did a lot, and a scar ran through his left eyebrow, a perfect imperfection.
His soft, supple, black leather jacket had a dark scent like something you’d want to stretch out across. Or maybe something you could get tied up with.
What did it take to hook a man like this? Being kidnapped by him obviously got us off to a pretty bad start. The fact that he was a criminal, that was going to be an obstacle, too. Just my luck. This whole thing was all just so perfectly wrong, it made me want to laugh.
It was like a cruel joke. Although, really, I was certain that he wouldn’t have been interested in me in any situation.
He drove a short distance, slowed, and stopped to park up under a shady tree.
When he turned again and extended his hand to me, I stared back at him. My mind told me to bang on the window some more. Maybe there was somebody nearby who would hear me.
“These aren’t really ideal circumstances,” he said softly, “but I really am very glad to meet you.”
“Well, I’m not glad to meet you, asshole.” I put everything I could into it. I was, though. I wasn’t going to admit it, but parts of me were so pleased to see him, they ached. Not for the first time, I cursed my treacherous body. “I don’t exactly fantasize about being kidnapped.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He looked down, and then back up at me again. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” And I wasn’t supposed to be charmed by the grin on his boyish lips.
“What,” I said, “you meant to kidnap somebody else?”
“No,” he chuckled, and it set my stomach quivering. “I only meant to steal the car.”
I pressed my lips together and drew a breath in. At that moment, I wasn’t sure if I could trust myself to speak.
“It’s all going to be fine,” he told me. “Nothing bad’s going to happen.”
“You’ve stolen Aileen’s car.” I reminded him. “You kidnapped me. And you didn’t even know you were doing it.” I was shouting again, but I was starting to have to put an effort into it. “I’ve been kidnapped by an idiot. So from where I’m sitting, boy-genius, something pretty damn bad has happened already.”
But then recognition dawned in me with a surge of ice through my veins. “I’m collateral damage,” I gasped. “I’m going to be an innocent bystander, caught in the crossfire.”
“There isn’t going to be any crossfire,” he said, shaking his head. His eyes softened just a little when he added, “You’re going to be fine.”
Even though I fought it, I couldn’t stop a little smile from thinning my lips.
“The thing is,” he said, “I have to get this car to someone pretty damn fast.”
“That’s it? You’re just going to shove me out and abandon me in some random suburb, miles from anywhere, with no clue where I am?”
His voice was gentle, but firm. “No, I’m not going to do that.” His hand was still extended toward me, but now he turned it palm-up. “I need you to wait for me. Just a short while.”
My eyebrows lifted. “What, here? In the middle of fucking nowhere?”
“No.” He smiled again. “No, I’ll take you somewhere. I need you to wait for me there. It’s not far, and I won’t be long.”
It was hard to keep my focus away from his golden-brown eyes. His voice set off vibrations in my stomach. I got caught up a moment, forgetting to speak.
When I hesitated, he said, “I need to deliver this car right away. The guy that I’m delivering it to, you don’t want to be in the car when I give it to him. So I need to take you somewhere safe.”
“Why wouldn’t I be safe?” My throat tightened.
Dirty Driver: Dark Crime Romance Page 3