Chapter 2
EVE
Bang!
The sound of the gunshot exploded around me, deafening me as I closed my eyes and braced for pain and death.
I’d been here before. I’d felt the hot rip of bullets through my skin, tearing me to pieces, like I was made of wet paper.
I’d faced death not even that long ago. It almost felt like a familiar embrace as I waited for the inevitable end.
Only this time was different…Something heavy collapsed on top of me and knocked the air clean out of my lungs, but there was no other pain. No tearing or burning or agony.
“Eve!” Lacey yelled, snapping me back to myself as something warm and wet soaked the front of my shirt. I blinked my eyes open in time to see my friend crawling from the wreckage of her car, blood coating the side of her head and a gun in her hand.
Wait, what? Why was there a gun in her hand?
“Lacey?” I replied slowly, my brain still rattling inside my skull. My line of sight shifted to the heavy weight on top of me, and I choked out a scream. “Oh my God!”
Frantically, I thrashed and shoved at the dead weight on me, managing to knock him to the side so I could slither out.
Bile burned my throat as I almost threw up on the gunman, who was definitely dead—half of his face was totally missing, and a bathtub full of blood had soaked my shirt and the ground around us.
“Are you okay?” Lacey asked, staggering a couple of steps closer before falling to her knees and swaying. “You’re good?”
“Me?” I replied in a strangled squeak, head spinning as my vision wavered around the edges. “Lacey, you’re—”
“Eve!” someone bellowed right as Lacey’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed unconscious to the hard asphalt of the road. Holy fuck, we were still in the middle of an intersection and—
“Evie babe!”
Brodie snatched me up into his embrace, hugging me so tightly my ribs ached, but I had no strength in my arms to push away. Not that I wanted to…it was Brodie, and he was here and I was alive. Holy shit, I’m alive! Wait, how was Brodie here…?
“Lacey! Is Lacey okay?” I mumbled, unsure if I was about to pass out, vomit, or scream. Maybe all three.
“Call an ambulance!” someone yelled. Ethan? Were all the guys here? I couldn’t see anyone with my face buried hard against Brodie’s chest.
“Brodie, fuck, get Eve back to the car. People are filming.”
Filming? Shit. Shit! Brodie was a celebrity, and there was a man missing half his face at our feet. How the hell would this be smoothed over by his PR team? Maybe they could pretend he was filming a movie…
A delirious laugh escaped me, and that was when I knew I’d really lost the plot.
“Haze, get them out of here!” Connor barked. “Andrew too. Fucking hell, none of you should be out here. I’ll deal with this.”
“We will deal with it,” Ethan corrected. “Just get her to safety. Lacey needs you, Connor.”
Lacey. Lacey needed him. Because she was his girlfriend. That made sense…so why did it make me feel a little sad inside that he was hers? Had to be the head trauma. I was almost certain of it.
“Come on, babe, let’s get you out of here,” Brodie said in a shaking voice, lifting me until my feet left the ground.
I assumed he was striding toward the car, and sure enough, when I lifted my head, we were almost at his fancy vehicle.
I noticed that we were still in the main street, sirens screaming through the air as emergency services showed up.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Andrew snapped. I hadn’t even realized the uptight dad of Bluebell House had followed us, ready to yell at me once again. I should have known, though, since it was Andrew that had driven me out my window in an attempt to escape his narcissistic personality.
The president’s son still looked put together in the midst of a crisis. He wrapped an arm around Brodie’s shoulder and ushered him into the blacked-out vehicle. Three of the four doors stood open as if they’d burst out moments ago, but Haze was in the driver’s seat playing getaway driver.
“I was thinking you’re an asshole,” I said, my words a little slurred. “A control freak. A pain in the butt. Who doesn’t own or control me.”
Andrew growled, like legitimately rumbling from his chest, the sort of sound a pissed-off bear would make, and Brodie shoved him with his elbow. “Let up, bro. She nearly died.”
“Yes, that’s my point,” Andrew replied with acid in his tone. “She nearly fucking died because she slipped out her window like some kind of—”
“Prisoner?” I helpfully suggested under my breath, but it was enough to stop Andrew’s rant flat. “I thought I was free to come and go as I pleased.”
“Now is not the time,” Brodie barked, gently maneuvering me into the back of the car and climbing in after me, while Andrew took the front passenger seat beside Haze. The doors all slammed closed, and Brodie reached over me to close the last door even as Haze revved the engine.
Except, where did he think we were going? Police cars blocked every road and exit from the intersection, so unless we planned on driving through a shopfront, we weren’t going anywhere.
“Come on, Connor,” Andrew muttered out loud, anxiously peering out the windshield like he was waiting for something. But Connor told us to leave, didn’t he? So he was staying with Lacey...
Shit. Lacey!
“Is Lacey okay?” I asked, straightening to look out my window, the rattling in my head finally easing as the adrenaline eased up. “She was hurt in the crash.”
I caught sight of Lacey’s car and my stomach dropped at how beat up it was.
How had either of us survived? It looked like we’d been hit by a train, not a pickup.
Beside the mangled remains of the vehicle, I spotted Connor’s broad back bent over Lacey’s body on the ground.
No, wait, that was Ethan. Where was Connor?
“Finally,” Haze growled, pulling my attention back to him as the police cruiser directly blocking our path rolled out of the way and the cop waved at us to go.
Andrew huffed a slightly worried laugh. “I thought Con had lost his edge for a moment there. Thank fuck for the Sullivans.”
The Sullivans. Because they were criminals, right?
Connor had once told me that his family owned the police in Bennington, and I guess he wasn’t exaggerating.
But a man was dead in the middle of the road.
It surely didn’t matter that he’d been trying to kill me first, he was still dead.
Shot by my friend, who was apparently more of a badass than I’d ever realized.
Lacey had saved my damn life. I would never be able to repay here for this sec—third chance at life. If this continued on, I might have to call myself a cat and expect I had six more lives up my sleeve.
Haze drove past all the cops without interception, and Andrew let out an audible sigh of relief as we left the lights and noise behind us. Left Ethan and Connor behind us…and Lacey. I really hoped she was okay. She had to be.
“This was stupid,” Andrew said again, turning in his seat to glare at Haze rather than me. “You should have stayed at the house.”
“Same could be said for you, Knightsbridge,” Haze shot back, gripping the steering wheel like he was choking someone out. “Apparently, we’re both acting rashly today. I wonder why that is.”
He didn’t pose that as a question, and Andrew just grunted in response, receiving whatever message Haze was sending. It was confusing the fuck out of me, but at least I wasn’t spiraling into a total meltdown right now.
“Evie babe, are you okay?” Brodie asked, stroking my hair away from my face while I stared blankly ahead, unable to snap out of my little trance.
“You might be going into shock.” He peered a little closer and snarled.
“You’re covered in blood and cuts, babe.
Do you need us to get you to a hospital? ”
I shook my head and it hurt, but not enough for me to change my mind. “No, just patch me up at home. I can’t do hospitals again unless I’m dying.”
Weirdly, even with all the gun violence and the cuts littering my body, I wasn’t panicking any longer. No hyperventilating, sweating, or seeing stars. I sort of felt cold. Numb. Calm…maybe?
“Definitely shock,” Andrew agreed, turning fully around in his seat and eyeing me critically. I stared straight ahead but couldn’t quite focus on his two blurry faces.
“Is Lacey going to be okay?” I repeated in a pathetically small voice. “She shot someone and saved my life…”
Andrew’s lips curled into a grin, and it was confusing enough that I blinked and frowned, my gaze locking on his now single face properly.
“It’s not her first, and won’t be her last,” he told me with that lopsided smile still firmly in place.
“She’ll be fine. Con will sort out the cops. Right now our main concern is—”
“Fuck,” Haze growled, stomping on the brake and sending me lurching forward. Andrew caught my shoulders at the same time as Brodie grabbed onto my waist, and I mentally cursed myself for not putting on a safety belt after just surviving a crash. I really wasn’t thinking straight.
“Haze, bro,” Brodie snapped. “What the fuck?”
“Problem,” Haze bit back. “Hold on while I—shit.”
Craning my neck, I peered through the windscreen and noted a nondescript silver sedan parked sideways across the street, blocking our way. Behind us, two more unmarked cars had just boxed us in. We were trapped.
Holy shit, I should have known that psycho wasn’t alone! He’d brought friends, and now they’d come to finish the job. Except this time the boys were in the car with me. If Lacey was acceptable collateral damage, did that mean they’d kill Haze, Andrew, and Brodie too?
No. No, I couldn’t let that happen! I needed to—
“Mr. Michaels, please step out of the vehicle and come with us,” a woman called out as she exited the silver sedan, gun drawn.
“Wh-what?” I stammered, my whole damn body shaking with anxiety and adrenaline. “She’s here for Haze?”
Haze let out a long sigh. “Fuck it, let’s play along.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and popped the door open before anyone could protest.
“I’ll handle it,” Andrew assured him, climbing over the center console and sliding into the driver’s seat as Haze exited the car. “Just don’t kill anyone during questioning,” he added as the door closed, leaving Haze on the outside.
“What? We’re letting him…What the fuck are we letting Haze do right now?” I blurted out, panicked and confused and downright terrified. Who were these people? Why did they want Haze?
Brodie tightened his grip around my waist, pulling me back into my seat and buckling my seatbelt. “They’re official. FBI is my guess.”
“Homeland Security,” Andrew muttered, taking a photo of the sedan’s license plate and a close up of the woman in her sharp black suit as Haze cautiously approached, his hands in the air. “Better them than the alternatives, but fuck Con is going to be a dick about this.”
Why the fuck were they all being so blasé about this?
“Homeland Security?” I repeated in a strangled voice, my mind whirling so hard it hurt. “No, that can’t be right. Aren’t they for terrorists and shit? Haze isn’t a terrorist!”
“Tell that to the chemical warfare bombs he helped create a couple years back,” Andrew muttered under his breath, his thumbs flying across his phone screen as he sent the photos to someone.
We could do nothing but watch, horrified as Haze was swiftly handcuffed and shoved into the back seat of the sedan. Then the cars were gone, and we were free to leave. Just like that. Like they hadn’t just whisked Haze away without even so much as showing an ID badge.
“What…” I croaked as Andrew started driving us home. “What happens now?”
“It’s a damn good question, Evie babe,” Brodie murmured.
Andrew puffed out an exasperated sigh. “Now we go home. And you explain why the fuck you don’t seem to have any concept of personal survival.
Then I get to make a seriously uncomfortable phone call to try and get Haze released from custody before any high-value trades are made with less-than-friendly foreign governments. ”
“Oh,” I whispered, feeling stupid and embarrassed. My insides twisted up with guilt, remembering Haze’s touch aversion. Somehow I doubted Homeland Security would respect his boundaries. Fucking hell, I hoped he could maintain control until Andrew made his calls.
Brodie interlaced our fingers, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Ignore him, babe. He was just really scared we would be too late. We all were.”
Shit, now I felt even worse. Haze had been arrested because of me.
And Lacey? Fuck, I hoped Lacey would be all right. I’d never forgive myself if she wasn’t, and neither would Connor.