• Twenty-Two •
· Twenty-Two ·
“We got company.”
Briar
The Buick was newer than the Accord had been, but I felt like a grandma, driving it. At least we had more room in the back seat and trunk. Not that we’d acquired anything new at our brief stop in Miami other than a dozen or so new books for Dovie. Finding the trackers had taken me a little longer than I had anticipated, but it was amazing how helpful YouTube could be on just about anything.
I knew Dovie had a million questions about Storm after what she’d heard in the apartment, but I’d not had time for all that when he left. We’d been on a time crunch, and once we were an hour north of Miami, I felt better about things.
Dovie had her shoes off and was curled in the passenger seat, reading a book. I glanced over at her, wondering if she was upset about running again. She hadn’t complained, but she rarely did. Every time we had to go, she went with it.
“We will have to stop at a beach before we get too far north. Maybe Myrtle Beach. I bet they have fabulous tacky matching shirts there.”
We had never made it to the beach, like I’d promised. I wanted to make that up to her.
Dovie glanced up from her book and shook her head.
I reached over and nudged her leg. “Come on! We’d be sooooo cute!”
She rolled her eyes, then looked back at her book. I knew she hated it when I interrupted her when she was reading, so I let her be. I was just trying to keep my thoughts away from Storm. Anything but him.
It was quite near impossible too. Damn him and his gorgeous face, body, magical tongue, and pierced penis. He was messing with my head, and I did not like it at all. He had walked out on me while I was covered in his cum! I had more self-respect than to lust over a man who treated me like a whore. I’d never felt so cheap and used in my adult life. He’d made me do things I knew I shouldn’t, but couldn’t manage to stop myself.
Glancing up in the rearview mirror, I almost swerved off the road when I saw a black Jeep. Dovie’s head shot up, and I knew she was staring at me, but I kept my eyes on the Jeep behind me. Flat black. Just like Storm’s. But I’d gotten those trackers off and left them in the parking lot. Right where the car had been parked. I was in a different car. How would he have found me this fast? Sure, he’d have figured out that I was gone eventually, but seriously? This was too fast. Impossible unless he was a mind reader.
I put on my blinker to get off at the upcoming exit. The Jeep did not, and I let out a sigh of relief. Perhaps I was just letting my imagination get the best of me. There were a lot of flat-black Jeeps out there. It wasn’t exclusive to Storm.
“Hungry?” I asked Dovie, glancing at her briefly before looking behind us again.
She turned in her seat to see what I was looking at. I veered over into the exit lane, and just when I thought the Jeep was going to pass me, it moved over entirely too close to my bumper. Dammit!
“We got company,” I said through clenched teeth.
Dovie’s wide-eyed expression when I looked at her made me feel guilty for putting her in this situation.
But how had he found me? I’d been so careful. He was nowhere. I scanned everywhere, making sure we weren’t being followed, did checks several times before pulling out of that car lot. There had been no sign of Storm or anyone who looked to be interested in me for that matter.
“I’m going to pull into the McDonald’s,” I told her. “Stay in the car. Duck. Keep yourself down.”
“Is it the man from the apartment?” she signed.
I nodded.
She didn’t ask anything else but put her book away and lowered herself to the floorboard, tucking her knees under her chin. I had to park fast and get out. Keep him away from my Buick. He’d been watching me. A small warmth tried to spread through me, and I mentally cursed at it. Clamped that shit down. I wasn’t going to feel anything because he was stalking me. He wasn’t doing it because he cared about me. He didn’t trust me. He thought I was lying to them.
I made sure to park between two cars, keeping several full spaces between our car and the next closest parking spot. Slamming the car door, I made my way over to his Jeep as he pulled in three cars down. Closer than I wanted, but it would have to do.
He was opening his door when I grabbed it.
“Seriously?” I shouted.
Storm appeared unaffected. He smirked. “Funny meeting you here, Briar. Didn’t know you had a thing for Big Macs, but you need to know there are some right there in Miami. Dozens.”
I gripped the door, leaning closer to him, which was probably a bad idea. “HOW?! I detached the trackers!”
He appeared amused. “Yeah, I noticed that.” Then, he grinned. “Good thing you don’t leave home without your phone.”
I stared at him, gaping. My phone?
“You put a tracker on my phone?” I asked in shock.
“You should know by now how thorough I am. In all things.”
The way his tone dropped, I forgot for a brief moment that I was hiding Dovie in my car. From him. There was no time to get flustered or hot and bothered. This man was not nice. He was cruel. I had to keep replaying how cruel he was in my head to keep focused.
“Where are you headed this time?” he asked.
“Why do you care?” I shot back at him.
He shrugged. “Business.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I shot daggers at him. “What am I going to have to do to get rid of you?”
He stepped out of the Jeep, leaving very little space between our bodies. “You sure that’s what you want?”
I raised my eyebrows, trying to move back, but being boxed in by the car beside him made that difficult. “You’re the human lie detector. You tell me!”
The sardonic smile that spread across his face made my hand itch to slap him. “I think your panties are wet right now because you’re thinking about early this morning.” The husky sound to his voice sent a shiver through me.
They weren’t, but now … DAMMIT!
“That was a mistake,” I bit out. A massive one.
He leaned in close. Too close. “Sure didn’t sound like it with the way you cried out my name and God’s at the same time.”
Placing both my hands on his chest, I tried to shove him back. I was done with this. He liked playing with me. He knew he got to me. I’d made that very clear both times he got his hands on me.
“I’m done with your sick games,” I told him.
He ran his fingertips over the side of my face. “You sure? No more spreading those pretty legs and letting my mouth on that needy pussy?”
I held my breath while I mentally scolded my body for reacting. Clamping my teeth together so that I wouldn’t respond.
“If you want to get rid of me, then tell me what you’re lying about other than the fact you like my tongue lapping at your cunt. You prove me wrong, and I will walk away.”
I was a game to him. He found humor in the fact that he could make me pant for him so easily. Everything I was disgusted him. I was feeling something for a man who had no respect for me and might actually loathe me—I wasn’t sure exactly how deep his hate for me went.
His hand dropped then, and he moved so quickly that I almost lost my balance as he pushed me back into the Jeep and headed off toward … my Buick. Oh God! Scrambling up from where I’d caught myself before completely falling back into his seat, I took off running to stop him. He couldn’t see Dovie. How would I explain her? I didn’t trust him. He wasn’t one of the good guys who would help me. He could use her to hurt me.
“STORM!” I screamed his name, realizing he was almost there and my legs weren’t long enough to catch him.
He didn’t slow or even glance back at me. He was there at the passenger door, looking inside, and I was helpless to stop it. I let out a cry of frustration as I took two more long strides and stopped. Staring at him, I waited.
When he finally turned to look at me, I couldn’t read his expression. It looked as if he’d shut off all emotion.
“Get her out.”
Horror gripped my chest. How was I going to save her now? What did I do? I had led her to this man. MEN who could use her for what? Why was he doing this? I had to think of something. We had come too far for me to mess up and let her down now.
“Why?” I asked.
I thought I could hit him hard enough to possibly knock him out. No, probably not. He was fast and smart. He dealt with bad men all the time.
“Because you’re both getting in my Jeep.”
“Where are we going?” I wished I could yell at Dovie to run. But where would she go that he wouldn’t catch her?
“We can start with an explanation.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I did not trust this man. I had never trusted Dovie with anyone, but especially not Storm Kingston. He’d done nothing to earn my trust. He’d done everything to make sure I didn’t trust him.
“Just let us go. You know she’s not Roger. That’s all that concerns you.”
His brows drew together. “You have a minor hiding in your car, Briar. That concerns me.”
“She’s with me by her own choice. I didn’t kidnap her if that’s what you’re worried about.”
He gave me a look that said he did in fact think I’d taken her against her will. What? Did he think I was abducting kids for money now? My stomach twisted at that thought. If I could take every girl from the horror Dovie had been in, that I’d been in, and run away with them, I would. The law hadn’t protected us. No one had saved me. I’d be damned if I let it happen to Dovie too.
Dovie sat up in the seat, and her eyes swung to me. I could see the wide, fearful look there, and I hated Storm for putting it there. Why couldn’t he just get in his Jeep and leave us alone?
Storm stepped back, and Dovie’s gaze swung to his before the door slowly opened.
“It’s okay,” I lied to her. I didn’t know if it was okay or not. I just hated for her to be so scared.
She gave Storm one more glance, then broke into a run until her arms were wrapped around me. She was trembling. Fuck him! I glared at him with all the fury boiling in my chest.
He studied us, then nodded his head toward the Jeep. “Let’s go.”
Not wanting to make any more of a scene than we already had, I held on to Dovie as we walked toward his Jeep. He opened up the back door.
“It’s fine, I promise,” I whispered in her ear before helping her climb inside.
Before following her, I turned back to him. “I will kill you if you do anything that puts her in harm’s way. I don’t give a fuck who you are.”
His eyes flared with something I wasn’t sure I read correctly, but I no longer cared. I wanted this over and to be free from Storm. Climbing inside behind Dovie, I reached over and took her hand in both of mine, holding on to it tightly.
Storm climbed in front and glanced back at us in the rearview mirror.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
She looked at me, and I signed for her to let me handle him.
“She doesn’t speak.”
He frowned, clearly seeing me doing sign language with her. “Is she deaf?”
“No,” I replied.
Neither was she mute. Not exactly. She hadn’t been born that way. It was trauma-induced.
“Why do you have her? Who is she? Where are her parents?” He shot questions at me fast.
I started to respond when a gunshot hit the side mirror on the driver’s side. My side of the Jeep. Shoving Dovie down, I looked up at Storm, who was starting the Jeep and pulling out a gun from his waist at the same time.
“Get down!” he shouted at me, and I covered Dovie with my body.
The Jeep slung us to the side as he backed up fast, then spun out of the spot we’d been parked in. Dovie’s entire body was shaking violently. I tried to hold on to her tighter for reassurance, but I knew she could hear my heart slamming against my chest that was pressed to her ear.
I didn’t want to distract Storm since he was driving the Jeep like a maniac, not that I was complaining. Whoever had shot at us, I wanted to get as far away from them as possible. Even if it was in Storm’s Jeep. That couldn’t have been meant for us. They had to be shooting at Storm. Who would want Dovie and me hurt?
“We’re going to be okay,” I told Dovie. “I swear, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Stay down,” Storm ordered as if I planned on sitting up with someone firing a gun at us.
There was a phone ringing over the speakers in the car.
A deep voice said, “Hello?”
“We were just shot at,” Storm informed whoever was on the other line.
“We as in you and Briar Landry?” the man asked.
There was a pause, and I held my breath.
“Yeah,” Storm replied, not saying anything about Dovie.
I let out the breath I had been holding, closing my eyes in relief.
“Where are you?” the man asked.
“We were at an exit in Port St. Lucie, at a McDonald’s. Headed north now on 95. Her Buick was left there.”
“I’ll send some of The Judgment. They’re closer. Description of the car?”
“Blue Buick Encore, I believe. Briar?”
“Yeah, Buick Encore, 2019. Full of boxes in the back seat.”
“Got it,” the guy replied. “Are you headed here?”
Another pause.
“No. We are headed to Madison.”
He let out a sigh. “Okay, if you think that’s, uh, safe.”
“It is,” Storm said with a hardness in his tone that hadn’t been there before.
“I’ll handle this. You get her north.”
“Thanks,” Storm replied and ended the call.
The only sound in the car was our breathing for several minutes. I stayed over Dovie as I racked my brain for who could have been shooting at us. Who would have tracked my car? Wired it? I didn’t want to think this was about me, but all the clues pointed to me. Not Storm.
“We are in the clear. No one is following us. You can sit up.”
I straightened, then patted Dovie’s back, but she only scooted over to bury her face in my arm.
“Who is she, Briar?”
I glanced down at her as she lifted her eyes to look at me. “It’s okay,” I assured her. Then looked up at Storm in the rearview mirror. “She was me. Except she was younger. She wasn’t old enough to run, and I couldn’t leave her there to live the hell I had until she was old enough to get away.”
Storm’s eyes hardened as he stared back out at the road. “Roger?”
“Yes,” I replied. “First time I went to kill him, I found her instead. I didn’t get him that time, but I got her free.”
Storm didn’t say anything for several minutes.
We rode in silence. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t have my purse. We had nothing but Storm right now. I didn’t even have my money. Everything had been in that car. I’d let this happen. Let my guard down.
“How long has she been with you?” he asked.
“Four years.”
His eyes locked with me in the rearview mirror.
“Her mother is Netta. You met her. She can’t live with that woman. Even if Roger is dead.”
When he said nothing, I tightened my arm around her. “I won’t get the law involved. If you try, we will find a way to run.”
His eyes swung back up to meet mine. “When do I get the law involved in anything, Briar?”
True. He had a point.
“Will we get our things? My car?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
Relief washed over me. “Now, you know I’m not hiding Roger. Can we go once we have it?”
“Someone is after you. That gunshot wasn’t meant for me. No one knew where I was. They were following you. I’d been so locked on you that I missed the fact that I wasn’t the only one following you.”
Dovie tensed up again.
“Could you please not?” I asked tightly, glaring at him.
It took him a moment, but he realized what I was saying, then nodded. “Sorry.”
I turned my attention to look out the window. We weren’t a secret anymore. Someone knew. Someone I had trusted twice, and he’d burned me. But that had been sex. He didn’t respect me, but possibly, he could be trusted with this. For Dovie’s sake.
“What if I had somewhere safe for the both of you to stay until we knew you could leave on your own again? Somewhere no one could get to you.”
I frowned at his reflection. “I’m not moving into your house.”
“No shit,” he shot back at me like the idea revolted him.
Asshole.
“I’m talking about Maeme’s. You remember how big her house is, and no one lives there but her. She’d love the company. You can each have a bedroom with a connected bathroom. Plenty of space.”
As awesome as that sounded, I didn’t think my taking Dovie into the den of the Mafia grandmother was a good idea. I also wasn’t ready to add someone else to this circle of trust that was already really weak with a lot of cracks.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. The less people who know, the better.”
“Maeme is someone you want on your side. No one will get to Dovie that you don’t want near her. Maeme would never allow it.”
Having someone with that kind of power sounded almost too good to be true. I knew better than to trust things that sounded too good to be true.
“Who is Maeme exactly?” I asked. “I know she’s not your grandmother.”
He grinned. “For all intents and purposes, she is my grandmother.”
For all intents and purposes? What the heck did that mean? Either she was or she wasn’t, and what kind of grandmother was going to be able to protect us, protect Dovie?
“I need a little bit more security than your grandmother.”
He chuckled. “She’s not actually my grandmother. She’s King’s.”
I’d thought that might be the case, but I had hoped it wasn’t. “Oh, well then, that’s a hell no.”
What was he thinking, and why hadn’t I known that already? I had let that woman into our apartment.
“Just let me explain. King isn’t a bad person for starters. He just worships the ground his wife walks on, and he’s determined to kill every fucker who ever hurt her. Rog—uh, well, you know he was at the top of that list. As for Maeme, she’s his grandmother, but she’s all of ours too. She’s not a normal grandmother. She’s a Mafia grandmother.”
Dovie’s head shot up, her eyes wide as she stared at me in horror.
Dammit, Storm. Did he have no control over his tongue? No … he did not. I’d already known that.
“It’s okay,” I told her and touched her cheek. “I swear it is.”
“Sorry,” Storm said, sounding like he meant it.
“Yeah, not exactly the way I was gonna explain to her what and who you were. So, thanks for that.”
“I said I was sorry.”
I signed, “I knew. It’s the Mafia in the South, and they have no issue with us. They wanted to kill Roger because one of their wives had been abused like we were.”
The flicker of pain in her eyes from the sorrow she felt for a woman she didn’t know, I understood that all too well.
“He isn’t going to hurt us?” she signed.
I shook my head. “He will protect us, and right now, I think we need him.”
She glanced up at him and sighed, then turned back to me and signed. “He is hot, and he likes you.”
I rolled my eyes at her and signed, “He hates me.”
She grinned then, and seeing that was a relief. “No, he does not. He looks at you like he wants you.”
I shook my head. “No,” I said aloud.
“He is like a guy in this book I read,” she signed.
“Definitely not book-boyfriend material,” I told her.
“What about book boyfriends?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“Do you both like to read?”
“I, uh, me not so much, but she loves it.”
“Maeme has a big library in her house.”
Dovie’s eyes went wide, and she clapped her hands together with a giddy grin on her face.
“Seems I won her over. Just need to work on you now,” Storm said.
I sighed and leaned back in the seat. “I’ll be won over if Dovie is safe.”
“She will be. So will you.”
I turned my head to look out the window. “What if Maeme doesn’t want us in her house?”
“Oh, she’ll want you. I might even get my own punch bowl of banana pudding for bringing you back to her doorstep. Dovie will be a bonus.”
He sounded so sure. I hated to get Dovie’s hopes up, but if this worked out, it would be nice to not always be looking over our shoulder at every moment. Even if it was for a little while.