Chapter 15
Dallas
Bursting through the antechamber door, I slam it closed again.
The two women who checked us in go still, darting their eyes to me, but they don’t gasp or run. They’re no doubt used to weird shit.
Five.
Six.
The bells chime, and I race to the shelves, shoving Callum’s phone onto the floor, out of the way. Seizing mine, I charge to the other door, whip it open, and dash up the stairs.
Seven.
Eight.
Maybe he just wants to enjoy seeing me run or maybe he’ll give chase. Either way, I’ve had my fun. I don’t need to stick around to see his new little friend blow him.
If I ever had one ounce of respect for Callum, it was for his taste in warm bodies. He may have wanted Clay at his side in high school, but out of all my brothers, I was the one he wanted in bed.
I mean, of course.
But the fucking hairdo on that other guy? And the shoes? He definitely pisses sitting down.
Leaping out of the door, I can’t hear anyone coming after me, but any second now…
Twisting my head left to right, I don’t see the car. “What the fuck?” I grit out.
He said it would take me home when I was ready. Shit!
A door slams, footfalls hitting the stairs behind me, and I run. “Fuck!”
I left my shirt and jacket inside, too. Dammit.
Digging in my heels, I race down the driveaway, but a golf cart speeds up next to me on the green.
“Let’s go!” Iron yells, Trace sitting next to him.
The door to the field house swings open behind us, and I hear their battle cry. “Let’s go!”
Every hair on my body rises, and I leap onto the golf cart as Iron steers over the grass.
Wind in our hair, we sail through the night, an engine revving to life behind us.
“This will be a story someday!” Trace sings as he holds the bar in front of him for support.
“Don’t even think about it,” I grumble. “I’m embarrassed for all of us.”
But I can’t stop the smile anyway. If we get out of this, it’ll be hilarious for Callum to always know we barely took him seriously enough to warrant a proper getaway car.
“It’s a golf course.” Iron twists his neck, all of us watching the Audi charging down the drive, alongside the green and gaining on us. “A golf cart made sense.”
I nod. “It’s actually clever.”
We can be on the course, and they can’t.
We can slip between trees, into yards, and just about any other place.
A horn honks, headlights coming up on our side, and Iron veers to the right. I lock eyes with Callum as Jerome drives. His vest and shirt are gone, and I crook my finger at him, daring him.
He just watches me.
I fist the bars, trying to hide how his calm unnerves me. As if he knows something I don’t. He knows how to play.
“So what was it like?” Iron asks me.
The Wolfe Room?
I don’t know.
It was everything I thought it would be and more. They’re creative. Callum was right. It’s all about power, but it didn’t feel like I thought it would, either.
Shallow. Indulgent. Hollow.
Did I like those women’s husbands watching their wives touch me?
“It lived up to the stories,” I say. “Beautiful women, striking atmosphere, and every deviant kink you can dream up. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.” I hang off the side of the cart as Iron coasts around a sand trap. “Apparently, there’s another room that’s more fucked up.”
“What did you see?” Trace exclaims.
I just laugh. “I didn’t get into that room tonight.”
“You going back in?” Iron presses.
I open my mouth to say I’ll do whatever I have to, but immediately I have the thought.
I’ll go back in if he does.
I didn’t really like it, but maybe it was because I barely knew anyone, and the connections are what drive the kink. I liked fucking with him, and I honestly wish I didn’t, because he doesn’t deserve attention. Not after what he pulled with Liv.
I gaze across the green, the moonlight floating across his fair hair and his bare arms as he talks on the phone.
But neither does he deserve the pleasure of playing in there without me.
Another car bursts out from the side of the restaurant, falling in behind Callum and Jerome, and we swerve, startled. Milo Price and Vincent Law honk their horn, throwing out smiles and waving their arms like they’ve already caught us.
“They’re all gonna have a dash cam,” I point out.
Iron straightens the cart. “Yeah, I know.”
They won’t try to bust us after the fact. It would be a waste of time and money, but we don’t want to be caught doing anything violent, either.
Iron swerves the cart to the edge of the grass, Callum peering over at me. With his eyes looking almost amused, he reaches over and turns up the music, some Nine Inch Nails song playing.
“You think they know this is a distraction?” I call out to my brothers.
Not all the Jaegers are here, but I don’t think they’ve realized that.
Iron draws in a long breath. “I think they want this to go on for a little while.”
It’s a long summer. Plenty of play time.
“Hold on!” Iron slams on the brakes, the two cars vaulting ahead.
Turning the wheel, he cuts behind them, over the street, and out of Fox Hill. Veering left, we bounce to the left and race up the lane, tires screeching against the blacktop behind us.
I glance over my shoulder to see the cars’ brake lights glowing bright as the lights from a cop car spin in the distance. In a moment, about three or four vehicles are going to be on our fucking ass.
I dive into the back seat finally, hanging on. “Where are we going?”
“Around the school,” Iron tells me.
“Why?”
“Because it’s out of the hills,” he spits out. “Macon has all the liquor, and he’s loading it into the prop trucks on Liv’s movie set.”
Liv’s movie set?
And then I remember. “At Mimi Collins’s house?” I burst out.
Clay’s grandmother?
They’re filming there as of yesterday, because her Georgian colonial is the epitome of southern gothic or whatever the hell Liv said.
She’s a white-haired old lady who I’m not completely convinced isn’t running this town like her own private Mafia.
“She’ll fry us!” I growl.
I’m almost as scared of her as I am of Macon.
“Well, they know we don’t have the liquor,” Trace explains, pointing to the cars behind us.
And they’re still chasing us, which means they have no idea where it is and think we’ll lead them to it.
The cars close in, and we’re going to have to dump the cart in a minute.
Trace’s phone rings, and he answers it, holding it up. “Yeah?”
“They are closing in,” Army says over the speakerphone. “And they have nothing better to do tonight. Got themselves a little frat boy militia that’s practically masturbating at how important they feel, hunting you dipshits down.”
“Yeah, they’re on us,” I chime in.
“Keep them trailing as long as possible,” Army instructs. “When you’re out of road, jump ship.”
“And go where?” Trace blurts out.
“Out of sight,” Army barks, authority lacing his words more and more after he became a police officer. He sounds like Macon now. “One of you is fucking someone that can hide you till morning.”
“I’m not that close to anyone I’m screwing,” I retort.
Trace chuckles.
Iron looks at me. “What about the school?”
I arch a brow. “That’s the first place Callum will look.”
He knows I have keys.
An engine roars behind me, and I glance back, seeing both black sedans charging us. I suck in a breath. They can go a lot faster than us. They’re going to run us off the road.
Milo’s BMW advances, revving on our asses.
“Shit,” Iron grits out.
“We gotta go, man,” Trace tells Army.
He hangs up, Iron looking back at me. “The truck is parked in the alley behind Lucinda’s,” he says.
The dress shop downtown?
“We’ll meet there,” Trace instructs.
Iron starts to slow, horns honking behind us, Jerome’s car swerving toward Milo’s and their lights glaring at us.
“Don’t get caught,” I tell my brothers.
Iron bounds over the curb and onto the sidewalk, all of us leaping from the golf cart as it crashes into some hedges. Milo’s car rams into the back of it, and I hear a growl behind me, “What the fuck are you doing?”
But I’m running before I can tell who Callum’s shouting at.
Are they trying to kill us?
We all race up a driveway. Trace’s favorite little cottage on Willow Glen, whose lawn he used to mow, glows with the gaslight lantern next to the front door. The elderly snowbirds living there won’t be back till November, and we could hide in there. He still has a key.
It’s best to stay on the run, though.
My brothers leap the wooden fence, and I follow, landing on the other side.
“Split up!” Trace yells, and I watch Iron scale the next fence on the other side of the cottage’s pool, while Trace cuts through a tree line, into the neighbor’s yard.
I let them go.
Peering through the slits in the wood panels, I watch Callum—in his car—back out onto the street, his eyes fixed on the direction we ran.
Milo’s trying to reverse his car.
In a moment, Jerome lays on the gas and he and Callum dart off, down the lane to cut us off.
Backing away from the fence, I listen to his engine as he coasts away.
It fades a little, but then it’s there again as Jerome makes a right, driving in the direction Iron went.
Milo’s tires screech, still struggling in front of the house, and I flinch, training my ears to single out Callum’s engine.
The town’s not big. He’ll have cops posted at both roads leading in and out of the Bay, and he’ll anticipate we’ll be trying to get to the storehouse or the school.
Mimi Collins’s house is behind a gate and they have no reason to go into that area, so Macon and his guys should be safe. Until they try to leave, that is. Hopefully, Army is keeping him posted.
Tilting my head, I listen for Jerome and Callum’s car as it makes another right.
Heat radiates off everything. The grass, the tree trunks, the pool, and the sweat trickling down my neck and spine.
What is he going to do? Once he has us arrested, will he be happy?
Of course not. He’s a fucking shell, and I don’t care what Macon says about the long game. They’re all nothing, and I’m tired of protecting our land.
I want theirs.
Tonight, I’m kicking his ass. He’s not making me run. Not now. Not ever.