Bad Behavior(48)

I blew my nose into the handkerchief out of spite.

As the car hurtled closer and closer to my doom, the fear began to turn into anger. The anger began to take hold inside me like a tree with deep, twisting roots. More than anger, resentment. I resented the assholes in this car. Even more, I resented DiSalvo. I saved him from a prison cell time and time again. I made it possible for him to retire in Cuba and live like a king for the rest of his life. After everything I'd done for him, this is how he repaid me? Four goons taking me out to a backwater and putting a bullet in my brain? Fuck no.

The passenger had long since turned away from me, perhaps embarrassed by my tears. The meatheads ignored me. The smoke continued to swirl. The only movement was the driver-turning, slowing, accelerating. He was the one variable, the one part of the equation that I could change.

Then I did something rash, stupid even. I didn't think about it. I just acted. I reached out and grabbed a fistful of the driver's hair and pulled as hard as I could.

The next moments were nothing short of chaos. The car careened off the roadway and flipped down a grassy embankment. I didn't have my seat belt fastened, but the meaty killers on either side of me provided a pillow of sorts as we somersaulted through the air. They crushed me and cushioned me, depending on how the car was positioned. None of us screamed. It was too fast for us to even muster a cry of surprise. The sound of metal crunching and glass breaking and the loud thunks as the vehicle landed on the dirt before taking to the quiet air again created a jagged cacophony in the enclosing darkness.



       
         
       
        





Chapter Ten


LINCOLN

"Whoa!" the cabbie yelled as the black car ahead of us jerked off the roadway and went tumbling down a steep embankment. It rolled and rolled down the hill. Only one thought was in my mind-Evan is in there.

"Pull over, now." I heard the shaking in my voice, felt the chill of terror that slid down my spine.

The car slowed and stopped. I jumped out into the night and tore off down the hill after Evan. A man lay in the grass, twisted and broken. His dark eyes were open and his face covered in blood. His neck was at a wrong angle, giving his thin-mustachioed face a puppetlike appearance. His eyes saw nothing. Dead. I continued down the slope at a breakneck pace. The mangled car had come to rest upside down in a few inches of water. It had carved a path through the cattails that crowded the edge of a swamp.

I should have been careful, should have checked for bad guys or weapons before approaching the car. But I couldn't. I needed to get to her, no matter the consequences. I saw no movement in the wreckage. My heart pounded in my chest, the rhythm of blood loud in my ears.

I got down on my hands and knees in the muck to peer inside. It was dark, but I made out two, maybe three bodies. I saw Evan's hand hanging out of the busted rear window. A chunk of dark hair with scalp attached to it was clutched in her grip. Her skin was pale in the moonlight, too pale. I crawled around through the mud and took her hand. Her skin was warm, but she didn't return my grip.

I pushed my hands in around her arm and shoved at what I surmised were the two large men I'd seen kidnap her. They had crumpled around her, trapping her smaller body between them. I pushed harder, ignoring a groan from one of them. It wouldn't be his last pained moment. I would see to it. But I had to free Evan before I could deal out any retribution.

I moved my hands up her arm to her shoulder and pulled, yanking too hard. I couldn't stop. I needed to see her, needed to make sure she was okay. She emerged from the wreckage as I pulled. Her head, torso, hips, and then her legs slid out, no shoes. She was streaked with blood, and her eyes were closed. I freed her from the crush of bodies and pulled her into my arms.

I fell back into the swampy water and felt something hard against my ribs.

I looked down. It was a gun barrel. Evan's finger was on the trigger. She looked up at me, stark terror marring her face.

"It's me, Evan. It's me. I've got you."

"Lincoln?" She blinked quickly, disbelief in her voice.

"Yes. I've got you."

She dropped the gun in my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

When the car had left the roadway and careened through the air, I thought I'd lost her. The relief of holding her, feeling her heartbeat, hit me in the chest near the spot where the gun barrel had rested. 

"Are you hurt?" I pulled her away and searched her face, the blood still fresh. Garish streaks of crimson painted her fair skin.

"Yes, I mean no. I don't think the blood's mine. At least, most of it isn't." She touched a cut along her forehead.