Training Their Mate(12)
“Babe, that just ain’t going to happen. You want to pack a bag, or do I have to carry you out of here?”
She didn’t like him taking away her choices. She would stay. Now more than ever, she’d have to be more careful. “I’m not going anywhere with you two. For all I know, you’ll lock me in your house and call the authorities.”
“We are the authorities.”
Her stomach tumbled. “You told me you weren’t.” They lied?
“We’re not with any organization you know. We kind of take the law into our own hands.”
“So, are you vigilantes?” In a way, she liked that idea, but if they went off half-cocked, no telling what they might do. No. She was safer here. If she thought someone was following her, she could stay with Chelsea. Crap. What would that accomplish? They’d just kill her, too.
“I guess you could call us that.”
“I’m still staying.” Or was she being too stubborn for her own good?
Trax shook his head. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
In one second, he pulled her to a stand and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. He clasped the back of her legs and walked to the door, acting as if she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.
She pounded on his back with her good hand. “Put me down, you brute.” This wasn’t happening.
“Dante, grab her purse and some toiletries, and I guess some undies. No telling how long she’ll be with us. We sure as hell don’t need her walking around naked.”
Like she ever would. Surely he was kidding. He exited the door, walked down the porch steps, and deposited her in the backseat of his black SUV. She fumed. This was the last straw to a totally shitty day.
As soon as he walked over to the driver’s side, she unlocked the door and raced out.
He was by her side in a flash. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I don’t like being kidnapped.”
“I asked you nicely, ma’am.”
He picked her up around the waist with one arm and placed her on the backseat again. She was about to climb out again when he slapped a set of handcuffs on her wrists and attached the other half to the overhead handle.
Oh, shit.
Chapter Four
Dante tossed her suitcase and purse in the back of the SUV and climbed in next to her.
“Hey, sugar. Don’t worry. This is for the best.”
Even though Dante seemed to be the more reasonable one of the two, she wasn’t happy in the least. “Aren’t you worried I’ll turn you in to the authorities for kidnapping?”
He reached toward her face and she moved closer to the door. “Sugar, don’t be like that. We are the good guys.”
“Good guys don’t kidnap innocent women.”
He chuckled. “You are not innocent, sugar. You just tried to murder someone. Besides, I was lucky to find that peashooter of yours in your robe pocket. Now that it’s safe and sound in your top drawer, I can breathe a sigh of relief.”
Dante was being overly dramatic.
“I wouldn’t have shot you.” She was only pissed at Harvey Couch for ruining her life.
“In our line of business, we have to suspect everyone.”
That was probably true. She jiggled her wrist. Her hand tingled. Jerk had cuffed her right hand, the one with the cut. “Can you undo me now? My hand is throbbing.”
Dante reached across the front seat and held out his palm for the key. Trax slowed the car as he extracted the key from his hip pocket and handed it to his brother. As Dante leaned over her, she inhaled his spicy scent. Maybe it was the smell of fresh rain, but he did something to her insides. He uncuffed her, and the moment she lowered her arm, pinpricks shot up her arms.
He grinned and sat back on his side of the seat. “So tell us about yourself.”
Her mouth dropped. “This isn’t a date. I’m being held hostage. Maybe I should know who the hell you are.”
He laughed. “Bro, we are going to have so much fun training her.”
“Training me to do what? Don’t even think about making me in to some vigilante.”
That got a chuckle out of him. “I wasn’t talking about you joining forces, but if—”
Trax lifted a hand. “Just shut the fuck up, okay. I need to think.”
When Dante mouthed I need to think and scrunched up his lips, she almost laughed. Bad men didn’t have this sense of humor. Dante, she trusted. It was Trax who gave her pause.
Nothing she could do now, so she settled back against the seat. She couldn’t even decide whether they were rich or poor, but the car, the clothes, and the fact they owned a business implied they weren’t some dirt bags living hand to mouth. Because Dante was rather quick to retrieve her purse, she figured he didn’t live too far from town.