SEBASTION
SHE: TEACHER
Idon’t accept Castro’s calls for hours, but I send him GPS dots periodically.
I don’t talk to him for as long as it takes me to make up my mind, and even when I do, I can’t quite find the energy to hear his voice.
Worse, I don’t want to hear mine while I speak the words and tell him where I intend to take his sister.
I simply drive toward the horizon, I’m meeting the sun head-on, and now and then, I allow myself the luxury of glancing to my right and studying the pixie-sized woman curled into her seat.
She sleeps. Finally. But it took her at least three hours of staring at the road before she so much as blinked.
Where I ignored Castro’s calls, she texted and assured him she was safe.
When he asked her where she was going, I knew I’d made the right decision not to tell her. Not quite yet.
When I sent those same GPS dots to Mav, I knew he’d wake to my updates this morning and do the right thing. He’ll prepare the family.
But now the time has come, and if Lincoln Castro calls my phone one more fucking time and interrupts the soft music playing over the stereo, I might wring his neck. So when his name flashes on my screen, I hit the green button on my steering wheel, but I turn the volume down as low as I can get it.
“Finally!”
“Don’t shout,” I cut in calmly. Deadly. “Don’t screech. Don’t Castro all over the place. Your sister’s sleeping, and if she wakes up because you’re carrying on like a little bitch, that’s gonna be on you.”
He snaps his mouth closed, audibly clicking his teeth and silencing his bull-like breathing.
He listens. Who knew he was capable?
“Scar’s asleep?”
“Yes.” I peek across and study her plump bottom lip poked forward, her long, dark lashes settled delicately on her cheeks.
She wears her hair in a high ponytail, but because of her posture, it hangs forward so the ends tickle the underside of her jaw.
“She’s safe. We’re still driving. She needs the sleep, so don’t bring your bullshit to me right now. ”
He breathes out a shuddering breath. The dude calms himself, regulating his bad temper and reining that shit in. “Where are you?”
“Same freeway as my last notification. About five hundred clicks east of Nichols’ house. Where are you?”
“Colorado,” he grits out. “You hung up and took my sister away. I didn’t wanna get on a plane and risk having to turn my phone off in case you needed to call me.”
“You mean Nova convinced you to shut up and listen to me?” I counter. “Keep the net wide. Don’t panic.”
“Mmm.” He exhales a tired groan and opens a rattling fridge door. “I’m calm now.”
Liar.
“I’m gonna dig in as best I can today. Try to figure out who this motherfucker is. In the meantime, my house in Mount Gaines has wraparound security cameras, so I’m able to keep an eye on things over there, too.”
“Nichols’ house?”
“No.” He closes the fridge again. “My house. The one behind the trees. Whoever this guy is might wanna take a peek at Nova’s house, and if he does that, he might kill the power like he did here.
My purchase of the place next door isn’t common knowledge, and there isn’t a soul on this planet who knows how extensive my security system is.
Even if he swings by and cuts the power to Nova’s house, it won’t affect our view. ”
“Good.” I peek to my right to get my next hit of this woman whose beauty pisses me off.
But instead of watching her sleep, I get caught up in her sleepy-eyed gaze.
My heart slams against my diaphragm as she slow-blinks and reveals a pair of bright-blues made more stunning by the glare of the slowly rising sun.
“Hey.” I reach across and drag her hand away from her mouth.
She’s barely conscious, and she’s already abusing her nails. “Your brother’s on the phone.”
“Scar?” Lincoln’s voice grows louder. “Hey, honey. You there? Speak, so I know.”
“I’m here.” Her voice is drowsy and thick. Her body, curled and stiff. Drawing a deep breath, she sets her hands on the seat and unravels herself from the knot she tied herself into. She glances out the windows, hers and mine, then she looks to the front again and brings her hand up.
I catch her wrist before she makes it all the way. Bring her arm down. Release.
Because I have absolutely no business touching.
“Gimme a sec to wake up properly.” She squeezes her eyes shut and yawns so wide, so deep, she makes that shit contagious and sends her yawn germs my way. “Where are you, Linc?”
“Colorado.” He scrubs a hand noisily over his stubble.
“I need you to tell me what to do, Scar. Tell me how to help you. Because you’re all the way over there, I’m all the way over here, and six months ago, I could’ve sworn anyone in Tank’s truck was dead meat.
Now you’re that person. Nova’s telling me to trust him.
And he’s telling me to trust him. But…” He releases a desperate groan. “I don’t know what to do.”
Do you trust me, Princess? Do you think I’ll do the right thing by you?
Like she can hear my questions, her gaze comes around and warms the side of my face.
Do you trust me, Scar?
“I-I think everything’s okay. We’re just driving, like he said.”
“Driving where?”
She reaches up and traps her nail between her teeth, so I lean across and pull it down again. But this time, I grab her bag and dump it on her lap. Yanking the zipper open, I snatch her pencil case out, then I unzip that, too, and select a pen for her to work with.
“Scar?” Lincoln is an impatient motherfucker, nagging when we’ve got our own shit to deal with. Whining when it’s not his life in the crosshairs. “Where is he taking you?”
“I don’t know.” She brings her feet to the seat, her knees pointed to the sky, then she forgoes scribbling in her notebook and draws directly onto her jeans. “He hasn’t told me yet.”
“Where are you taking my sister, Jameson?”
“To the only place I know that’s remained a secret for three decades already.” I wrap my hands securely around the steering wheel and tighten my grip on the leather. “It’s locked down, has its own army, eyes in the sky, and escape routes only my family knows about.”
“T-to your mother’s compound?” His stutter turns into an explosion. “To a military compound Richard Aster spent his life paying homicidal assholes to locate? Are you insane?”
“The codes are destroyed, and the code keepers are no longer in play.” I glance across and catch myself in Scarlett’s wide, doe-eyed stare. “It’s the safest place I know.”
“It’s also hidden!” Lincoln roars. “Which means I can’t get to her unless you tell me where it is. Are you gonna text me the address, dickhead? Send me GPS dots?”
“Nope.” I drag my gaze front and center and hope, I fucking pray, I’m making the right decision. “But you’ll know she’s safe, and she’ll be able to contact you anytime she wants.”
“Jameson!”
“The sooner you smoke this dude out and make this bullshit go away, the sooner we all go back to our lives.”
“And what about Scarlett when it’s all done?
Nova only had one code, one of five, and you’ve been up her ass for months already.
Now you’re just gonna walk my sister through the front doors and…
what? Put a bullet between her eyes so she can’t pass the secret on to someone else?
God forbid she knows where your mommy lives. ”
“Let me deal with me,” I sneer.
Tension and fear roll off Scarlett’s trim body like heatwaves on a scorching hot summer day.
Nice work, Castro. Terrify the already terrified woman.
“I’m taking the key out of play,” I grit out dismissively. “If he can’t find her, he can’t hurt her. In the meantime, you need to figure out who he is. Then neutralize him.”
We pass a sign advertising a diner two miles up the road. I’ve gotta piss, and eat a meal to make up for the sleep I didn’t get. Most importantly, Scarlett needs to not hear her brother bitching about the possibility I might kill her.
I’ve already told her I would too many times to count. Back when it was hypothetical.
“We’re gonna stop in a minute, get some gas and something to eat.”
“But—”
“We’ll stay in contact, but you won’t be getting GPS dots for much longer. Enjoy ‘em while they last.”
“You—”
I tap the button on my steering wheel and end our call, and before I miss the exit, I merge right and bring my truck around the interchange a little faster than road laws allow.
“Time to get out and stretch our legs for a minute, Princess. I need food before I die, and you need to stop staring at me like I already have my gun to your head.”
She tears her gaze to the front, straightens in her seat, and drops her feet to the floor. Re-capping her pen, she nervously brushes strands of hair behind her ears, while I bring us off the road and into the massive driveway leading to a gas station with an attached diner.
When Linc’s name illuminates my phone screen, I decline his call and tug the device clear out of the cradle, disconnecting it from my truck’s stereo system, and beside me, Scarlett anxiously fusses with her sweater, smoothing the fabric over her torso and peeking up at the vanity mirror.
“Ugh.” She scrunches her lips and hurriedly reties her messy ponytail. “Gross.”
I slow the truck and bring us into the parking slot closest to the diner’s front doors, then cutting the engine, I snatch my keys and unsnap my seatbelt.
“You look fine.” I push my door open, only to be slammed by the arctic breeze cutting across the open driveway.
Fuck. “Climb out this way, Princess. I’m starving. ”
I lead Scarlett to a booth in the rear corner and place my back to the wall.
While she shakily drags her cross-body bag over her head and slides gingerly onto the bench seat opposite mine, I study the long counter in the middle of the room, cracked and worn red leather-topped stools running from one end to the other, while equally aged booths wrap around the entire space, even in front of the windows so diners are rewarded with a view of… well, more mountains.
So many fuckin’ mountains.