56. Maverick
56
Maverick
I whirled as a body hit the ground, spotting a man in a trench coat collapsed with a pool of blood spreading around him, gun in hand. My heart rate kicked up a notch before my brain processed that someone shot him. I turned to see Sophie standing behind the driver’s door of my McLaren, her eyes full of fear as she held a Glock in her hands.
What. The. Fuck?
“Get in the fucking car, Maverick! Always have to do things the hard way, don’t you?” God, she was angry, but here was my dark angel, protecting me when I needed her the most.
My reflexes were so fucking slow as I took in the scene around me. I saw figures stepping into the streetlights, into the open where they’d have a clear shot at me, and it all became so very obvious.
I darted toward her, ducking my head and throwing myself into the passenger seat just as she fired off another shot and joined me. She shifted the car in gear and floored it out of there, throwing me back into the seat as my brain played catch up.
It was a trap.
Kendrick didn’t care about the conversation.
Yes, he lured me out.
Yes, I fell for it.
But worst of all, I wasn’t even fucking vigilant when it came to my surroundings.
I should’ve been. Why hadn’t I been more careful?
Police sirens broke me from my haze as Sophie outdrove them. When I looked at her, her jaw was clenched, her eyes hard and angry as she kept glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Soph—”
“Don’t,” she seethed. Then she reached across the console to pull my suit jacket to the side. “Are you hit?”
“No,” I said on instinct, but the movement of the fabric had me hissing. I glanced down and saw a growing bloodstain on my white dress shirt. “Fuck, I guess I am.” I shrugged my jacket off to get a better look. It was just a graze, but it hurt like a bitch now that I noticed it.
Her driving was nothing short of reckless abandon as she took turns way too fucking fast, but a single glance behind us confirmed why. There were two SUVs following us.
“You just couldn’t stay put, could you?” I snapped, suddenly angry that she left the safe confines of our home.
“How about a thank you for saving your fucking life?”
“I am so going to punish you for talking to me like this,” I growled.
She laughed humorlessly. “Really? You’re thinking about sex right now? You were almost killed.”
My head fell against the back of the seat just as she accelerated faster. The streets were blurring, and it was amazing she could navigate them at all at this speed. I clutched the door and the center console for grip as she whipped the car around as if it was easy for her. “Jesus, Sophie, you can slow down a little.”
“Right, well, unless this car is bulletproof, we really can’t afford for me to drive like a good Samaritan right now.” She took another sharp turn, and I won’t lie—my stomach flipped uncomfortably. It had been a long time since I’d been in a high-speed car chase.
Next thing I knew, Sophie was handing over her Glock. I eyed it warily before taking it. “I have my own guns, babe.”
“I know. But I need you to be ready for this next part.” Her eyes glanced in the mirror again, and when I looked, too, I saw how close the SUVs were, and that there were armed men hanging out of the windows. Shit. I needed to pull my act together before I got the both of us killed.
“What’s your plan?”
She licked her lips, drawing my gaze to them, and I had the sudden urge to kiss her. I would if I wasn’t worried she’d shoot me for distracting her. “I’m turning right to get onto the bridge. When I do, you need to do your best to take them out. I won’t be able to go fast enough to lose them until we’re outside of city limits.”
Ignoring the searing pain tearing through my ribs, I shifted in the seat, twisting to face the back. One foot braced against the floor, the other knee dug into the leather, steadying me as I rolled the window down. Wind whipped into the car, hot and fast, filling my lungs as I checked the chamber—one in, ready.
The street was a fucking blur of chaos, cars veering, horns blaring. Drivers slammed on their brakes, some swerving onto sidewalks, others speeding up to get the hell away. Pedestrians stood frozen at crosswalks, too stunned to move.
I waited. Waited for Sophie to turn, for the right moment.
The second she did, I leaned out the window, barely taking a breath before pulling the trigger. A shot cracked through the air, deafening, splitting the night in two.
One of the front tires of the SUV behind us exploded, the vehicle fishtailing wildly, tires shrieking against pavement. It spun out, colliding with a sedan before slamming into a brick building, glass shattering on impact.
No time to look at Sophie.
No time to process.
Just time to prepare—because the next car wasn’t stopping. The vehicle in the back lurched forward, gaining speed. Passenger-side window rolled down. I caught the glint of steel.
AR-15.
“Fuck—” I barely ducked back into the car before the first round shredded through the back windshield, glass shards slicing past me.
Sophie screamed.
I grabbed the back of her head, shoving her down just as another bullet tore through the leather headrest where she’d just been.
“Drive!” I barked, but she was already pulling out of my hold, weaving through traffic as sirens blared in the distance, closing in.
Fucking hell. This wasn’t just a chase anymore. This was a warzone.
“Hold on,” Sophie grunted, accelerating more. I gripped the headrest and looked over my shoulder with wide eyes.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snarled as blinking red lights warned us to come to a stop.
“I remember saying that earlier this evening when you left me cuffed to our bed,” she snapped, her foot not letting up on the gas at all.
My heart thudded, and rather than watch her kill us, I leaned back out of the window to see the driver of the last SUV grinning maniacally at me, as if he, too, saw my demise flash before his eyes. I guess that made his job easier.
“ Sophie. ”
The bridge we were on was currently drawing back. The bright red lights were a beacon in the night to fucking stop, but she didn’t seem to care about those or the metal arm preventing cars from driving while the drawbridge was up.
According to my fucking wife, this was a way out.
I spun back around and grabbed my seatbelt, realizing too late that she was serious. She sped up more, the bridge not even connected anymore, and I felt overwhelming regret at not listening to her earlier.
There was no time left for words. I scrambled for purchase with my hands, bracing for the worst when the metal barrier hit the front of the car but didn’t stop us. Then we were over the edge, flying through the air like some action movie, and my heart was palpitating and the air left my lungs and my stomach threatened to heave—
But the car landed on the other side, the backside slipping as Sophie got control of the car again before hurtling through the other metal arm barrier.
I was panting, my pain forgotten as my brain struggled to keep up that she’d just pulled that maneuver off. Slowly, I swiveled to look at her, my pulse still running haywire.
“What the actual fuck was that?”
“Us making it out of there alive.” She said it like it was so simple, a small smile on her lips. “We’re a team, remember?”
I exhaled sharply, admiring her with new eyes. She really had left her old life behind. She was disheveled and frenzied yet totally at ease with herself in this role.
“Team, huh?”
She tore her eyes off the road for a moment, her speed slowing. “Don’t give me those eyes. You’re on a sex ban.”
I groaned even as I grinned. “It’s cute you think you’re calling the shots. Now pull over, I can take it from here.”
She huffed, but I could tell she was amused. “Oh, did my driving scare big, bad Maverick?”
“If your goal was to show me what death would look like, then congratulations. You succeeded.”
Giggling, she made her way down back alleys to avoid traffic. “On a serious note, it’s evident now what your family’s intentions are, so we can’t assume we’re safe until they’re dead.”
“Right. So, what do you propose?”
“Now my opinion matters?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I owe you an apology. I should have listened to you, and I’m sorry.”
She stayed silent, clearly seething as she looked down at her phone and navigated the car through streets I didn’t recognize.
“What I did was wrong. I should never have done that to you. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
More silence. I didn’t know what to do. I’d fucked up badly and now I needed to accept the consequences. Problem was that I didn’t know what the right move was.
“What do I need to do to make it up to you?”
Sophie side-eyed me for a brief second before returning her attention to the road, saying nothing. After a few minutes, she turned into an industrial district that I did recognize. Duane and Paulie kept a warehouse here for emergencies, so we rarely visited it, but it was useful. I wondered if that was where she was taking us. A few more turns confirmed that’s what she was doing. But how did she know about this place?
“What are we doing here?”
Finally, she pulled the car into a shadowed space behind the warehouse and turned to me. “Stay here until I come to get you.”
“I’m not staying here until you tell me what’s going on.”
She arched a brow at me. “You’re not in a position to negotiate.”
“I asked you what I needed to do to make it up to you.”
Her lips flattened. “You will stay here without asking questions. Then, and only then, will you make it up to me.”
I watched as she got out of the car, her figure disappearing into the shadows of the warehouse. My mind raced with questions, but I knew better than to disobey her orders right now. Sophie was a force to be reckoned with, and I had underestimated her once already tonight. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Time seemed to stretch on endlessly as I sat in the car, my mind replaying the events of the night. The adrenaline rush from the chase was fading, leaving a dull ache in my ribs from where the bullet had grazed my flesh. But more than the physical pain, it was the emotional turmoil that weighed heavily on me.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Sophie returned. She had a determined look on her face, and she opened the passenger door with a mysterious smile stretching her lips.
“Get out,” she commanded, and without hesitation, I complied. Standing outside the car, I waited for her next direction, trusting her implicitly for whatever unknown awaited us.