Hard Bastard(48)

I made a few more abrupt turns, and it didn’t take long before I realized that we were being followed. I could barely believe it, since we’d been driving around for a couple hours already, but there they were. I couldn’t make out who was in the car, but I had to assume they were mafia.

“Hold on,” I said to Sadie.

“What? Why—“

She was cut off as I jammed on the brakes. We jolted forward and the cars behind me had to brake hard to stop. I waited a second as the light in front of me turned yellow, and then I slammed on the gas. We sped through the light, leaving the other cars honking their horns behind us.

I watched in the rearview mirror as the car that was following us pulled out of the line and sped up. It flew through the red light as I hit the gas harder, nailing a rough left turn across traffic, flying down back streets.

“What’s happening?” Sadie asked.

“We’re being chased,” I said.

“By who?”

“Mafia, I’d guess. But I can’t tell.”

I hit a hard right, tires screeching on the pavement. I was weaving freely through traffic, praying that a cop didn’t see this little chase going down. If we got picked up, we were fucked.

I needed to end it fast. Otherwise, they were going to win one way or another.





Chapter 19





Sadie





I held on tight to the dashboard as Gage sped us through the tight Ashertown streets. We went from staying on the outskirts to driving down through town, running red lights and passing cars as fast as possible.

I couldn’t get a good look at the car chasing after us. It was an old sedan, the big boxy metal sort of thing, in a skin-color beige color with a brown vinyl top. It was an ugly thing and it gave me the creeps as it doggedly followed us, not giving us a single inch to breathe.

Gage drove expertly. We moved through the town and headed back south, weaving out toward the farmlands.

“We’re going to lose them on the back roads,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.” He grinned, wild and manic. “Trust me.”

The car lurched and spun as he hit a hard turn. We flew off the main road and hit a gravel path. I’d been down this way before, and I knew that it split off at the very end, one path a dead end and the other a cut-through past the soybean farms.

I looked back but couldn’t see behind us. There was a thick cloud of dust and gravel kicking up as Gage kept the car moving fast, way too fast for the small gravel road.

Ahead, I caught sight of the split in the path. Gage veered right, heading toward the cut-through, but at the last second he slammed on the brakes and pulled off the path, into the woods.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Just wait.”

We couldn’t see the spot where the path split, but we could hear the car coming up the gravel road toward it. I listened as it slowed down, its engine rumbling, waiting for something.

I heard a car door open and then close. Voices drifted down, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was a tense moment and I didn’t want to breathe. If they came down our path, there was nowhere left for us to run. We’d have to hope that they drove on past.

My heart was hammering in my chest. Seconds ticked past like they were hours. Gage took the gun from his pants and held it in his hands, looking perfectly calm.

Thirty seconds later, the car door slammed. I heard tires on the gravel, and then slowly the sound of the car faded away.

Another ten seconds passed before I let out my breath.

“I think they’re gone,” I said.

He nodded. “Let’s give it another minute.”

We sat there waiting, but there were no other sounds. There was only the noise of my heart beating hard and my stomach practically turning over on itself.

Gage finally lowered his gun. “They’re gone,” he said.

“Who was that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“They didn’t look like the mob.”

“No, they didn’t. But Vadik might be desperate. He could have hired outside muscle.”

“Outside muscle?”

“There are a lot of gangs out there,” he said, starting the engine and slowly pulling back out onto the gravel road. “Some of them do work for Vadik from time to time. Some of them are even hostile.”

“I didn’t realize you guys had enemies.”

“Of course we do. Anyone with money and power has enemies, even if you don’t know about them.”

We headed down the gravel path and out past the soybean farms. We turned slowly onto a normal road and drove for another ten minutes.

Gage pulled off into a Motel 6 parking lot. He found a spot and killed the engine. “As good a place as any,” he said.