Beautiful Moves (Shifting Steel Book 3)(56)
It’s probably best to not strain things with the wolf pack, till I know what the hell Drake is up to.
“Well like you said, it’s probably a good time to call it an evening,” Coso said as he stood.
Bastian nodded and walked with Coso back to his car, then watched the wolf take off. He then headed to the garage, and located the black sedan he drove when he wasn’t in the mood to be noticed.
“What’s the status?” Bastian asked when AJ, his enforcer, answered his cell.
“On One-Fifty-Nine, heading toward Red Rock Canyon.”
“I’m following you. Keep an eye on the female with Drake.”
“Yes sir.”
AJ texted Bastian directions, until the enforcer was forced to abandon his car and follow Drake on foot. Once Bastian dumped his sedan on the canyon access road, he tracked AJ’s phone through the White Rock Hills.
“What’s going on?” Bastian asked, when he finally caught up with his enforcer.
“It took me a minute to circle around down wind, but the jackal alpha and the female should be over that ridge.”
“What the hell is Drake doing out here?”
“This is his dump site,” AJ replied.
“It was a rhetorical question.” Bastian knew full well this was where Drake dropped his little problems. It was the strange female that made the situation weird. “We gotta get over there before Drake does something to that female. I think she was trying to get me to help her at the casino.” Bastian shook his head. He wasn’t about to admit how he thought she asked him for help.
Bastian and AJ had Drake’s car in their sights, and were working their way closer, when a second pair of headlights flashed, casting shadows off the surrounding hills. The duo paused as a cargo van pulled up behind Drake’s silver Trevita.
Who the fuck brings a car like that out on this shitty road?
Drake exited his car, as four of his men hauled a struggling guy from the van. Bastian was too far away to hear what was being said, but the headlights showed him all he needed to know.
“This can’t be good.” Bastian thought it was the girl who was in danger, but apparently, he was wrong.
The passenger side of Drake’s sports car flew open and Ella rushed out. Drake grabbed her before she made it to the van. A dozen shots rang out, striking the struggling man in the chest, and he dropped to the desert floor.
Ella’s blood curdling scream echoed off the hills, making Bastian’s hair stand on end, as the desperate wail pierced him. He felt a second of horror and awe, as the air warbled around Ella. An instant later everything erupted. The shockwave, riddled with debris, hit Bastian and AJ, knocking them backwards.
“What the hell?” AJ groaned.
“That’s what I’ve been saying all night.” Bastian sat up and attempted to shake off the stars swirling before his eyes.
When the dust settled, the scene of carnage that greeted him was impressive. The Trevita lay several yards away, having taken the brunt of the blast. The van wasn’t much better. The rear was caved in and it lay on its side. Bastian wasn’t surprised when the four jackals and Drake picked themselves up from where they’d been tossed by the blast. They looked like hell, bloody and tattered, but it took an awful lot to kill a Shifter.
What did surprise Bastian was the female, who lay unmoving in the center of a crater. What he’d witnessed was unbelievable. The Outsider had been at the epicenter of the blast, as if she were the bomb itself. And yet she lay there whole and unscathed.
There’s something unreal about that woman. Bastian wouldn’t have believed any of this, if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.
Drake gestured wildly toward his sports car, as he barked something unintelligible. The four underlings swiftly flipped the van back onto its chassis. The jackal alpha slung the unconscious woman over his shoulder, then got into the beat-up cargo van. Bastian was impressed when the thing actually started up. The jackals chained the mangled sports car to the tow hitch, then the whole pathetic outfit hobbled down the gravel road, disappearing into the hills.
“Good luck with that mess, Dick,” Bastian commented incredulously.
“What do you want to do about him?” AJ gestured to the body in the road.
“My night has been so fucked up, why not add body clean-up to the list,” Bastian replied, as he headed toward the road. When he reached the body of the black-haired male, he instantly scented wolf. “Ah shit. I better call Coso.”
“He’s not going to be happy.”
No kidding.
Bastian shook his head as he looked down at the wolf Shifter with blood covering his chest and stomach. Drake was walking on thin ice pulling a stunt like this. Bastian doubted Coso would be willing to overlook the murder of one of his own.