“I’ll call you from the road.”
“Get going man,” Liam says tightly.
I nod, and I’m pulling the phone away from my ear to hang up when I hear his voice again.
“Hey, and Con?”
“Yeah?”
“Be safe, man.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sierra
I wake up with the gasp frozen in my throat and my heart jumping out of my mouth. My senses scream at the sudden switch to “on”, and I bolt up in bed to see Connor looming over me.
“Get up, now,” he hisses, pushing clothes into my stunned hands.
I frown at the semi-light coming in around the curtains over the windows. “What time is it?”
“Ukrainians,” he says tightly, already whirling and shoving things into the bag slung over one shoulder.
“What?”
Connor whirls, his eyes blazing at me. “The big scary guys from the bar who saw you? They’re coming here. Right now.”
My gut drops.
“Here?”
Fear lances through me, and I can feel my heart start to pound inside my chest as it starts to take over.
“I don’t know how, but we need to leave, now.”
“Okay, okay,” I say numbly, fumbling out of bed. “Hang on-”
“Now, princess!” he barks, sending me jumping out of bed and yanking my old clothes on.
“Okay! I’m sorry I’m not a fucking expert at getting out of places because the mob is coming to kill me.”
“I know you’re not.”
I jump at the sound of his voice in my ear, his hand on my hip.
“Look at me.”
I swallow, taking a breath before I turn and glance up into his eyes.
“We’re going to get out of here, I just need you to do exactly what I say, understand?”
I nod.
“Do you trust me?”
I’m not sure.
Especially after the things I saw last night in Agent Marlow’s file, but there’s no time for thinking right now, so I nod instead.
“Good. Let’s move, now.”
He turns, grabbing a jacket and his car keys. It’s all the time I need to make sure the burner phone the FBI agent gave me is tucked into the bottom of my bag before I shoulder it and follow Connor across the loft.
In the elevator, my eyes drop to the gun in his hand, clicking menacingly as he snaps a clip full of bullets into the handle.
Guns.
I don’t think I’ve ever even seen one for real before - well, before that night at the bar.
Part of me suddenly wonders if it’s the same one he put against my head that night.
The elevator drops down into the garage, and I can feel my pulse beating faster with every second. I’m in over my head here, in a very big way. This isn’t the sexy outlaw fantasy. This isn’t the thrill of something dangerous with the dark stranger at the bar.
This is actual danger. This is a real threat, and suddenly, I’m so scared I can barely breathe.
The elevator opens, and he hustles me out by the arm. “This way,” he growls. It’s not the same growl as the night before - the sort of growl that made me moan for him and shiver in ecstasy.
It’s weird that I notice that in this moment, but I do.
We stop behind a pillar about thirty feet from where his car is parked near the loading dock along one wall. Connor glances around, his eyes darting wildly and the gun tight in his hand.
“We’re gonna run for the car.”
“Run?”
The word sounds like cement coming out of my mouth.
“On three.”
I can feel my pulse thudding in my ears.
I’m not ready for this.
“One.”
His hand grips my arm, and I can feel my knees start to shake.
“Two.”
The brick wall behind us suddenly shatters into dust, and I scream at the peppered popping sound of guns firing that immediately follows.
“Now!”
Connor roars as he yanks me after him, pulling me as he bolts for his car. I scream as he pulls me down behind it, my hands clutching my head as I hear the sound of metal whizzing overhead.
He yanks the passenger side door open, climbing in and pulling me in after him. I’m barely out of the way of closing the door before Connor guns the engine and takes us peeling out of the parking garage.
We go tearing up the ramp and screeching out into the outside parking lot. My eyes go wide at the men who come running out from behind a burned out old car, but Connor suddenly cranks the window down and levels the gun out of it. We peel out, and I’m still screaming as the thing roars in his hand.
We swerve again wildly, the car jerking dangerously from side to side, and suddenly, I snap out of my daze.
“I’ve got the wheel!”
What?
I have no idea why I say it, or how I even know to lunge across the shifter and grab the wheel out of Connor’s hands. He barely nods before he yanks his arm around, both hands now training the gun at men running towards us and dropping them with three thundering shots.