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About Griff’s demeanor.
“Did he buy it?”
“Yeah,” I say softly, but I’m going over the conversation in my mind for the hundredth time in the last few seconds, searching for the knife in the needles.
“What is it?” Frankie asks, sitting up and wrapping the sheet around her chest.
It hits me like a bullet to the back. “Shit,” I leap out of bed. “Get dressed. We gotta go, and we gotta go NOW.”
For once Frankie listens and pulls on her clothes, I do the
same “What happened?” she asks, shoving her feet into her shoes and pulling her t-shirt over her head.
“He told me to remove your old man from the desk to give his team better access to the computers when they get here,” I tell her.
“So?” she asked, hopping up and down to pull up her shorts.
I grab my cut and shrug it on. “So, the problem is My text said that I found your old man slumped over dead. Didn’t say shit that he was at the computer or at a desk.”
Frankie’s eyes went wide with understanding and fear. “Cameras?”
I nod. “Fucker saw and heard everything.”
“Shit,” she says, pushing her feet into her shoes.
“He knows it was you and not your old man. He’ll be coming for us soon. I bet his men are almost here already.”
“I have to tell you something,” she says.
“Not now, right now we have to get the fuck out of here.” I take her by the arm and lead her from the room just as the window of her bedroom shatters. Glass shards pierce my back. A bullet whizzes right by my ear before exploding into the wall a few inches over Frankie’s head.
Over the unending, unyielding barrage of gun fire, the urge to protect Frankie is downright overwhelming. It’s my only goal. My only mission. The most important fucking job I’ve ever had. While the house explodes around us, a realization hits me harder than any bullet.
I’m not just in love with Frankie.
I’m prepared to die for her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
There’s so much gunfire.I barely have my shirt on over my head when the walls explode all around us like they’re made of paper. Smoke’s grip on my hand is so tight it’s almost crippling as he yanks me down the stairs, but I don’t tell him to let up. I won’t. I need to be connected to him.
We race down the stairs and out the back door through the woods.
The gunfire follows.
The pace is lung-burning and never-ending. I’m in good shape, but I’m falling behind.
Smoke stops, tugs on my arm and lowers me to the ground on my hands and knees. He pushes me toward a large tree with a hole no larger than a couple of feet hollowed out at the bottom of the trunk.
“Hide in here,” Smoke orders. Voices shout to one another in the not too far off distance. “I’m a huge moving target. They’ll spot me a lot faster than you, but I can outrun them. Stay here. Stay quiet. I’ll lead them away from you.”
“No! Don’t go!” My words are a whispered yell followed by a choked-out sob.
I’m hurting. My feet. My muscles, my heart. I can barely see him through the blur of my own tears like I’m looking up at him from under water. I’m drowning in the depths of my own misery, every breath I suck in is killing me. My heart is hammering out a frantic SOS to the rest of my body and it’s crushing me from the inside out.
“Meet me here in the morning,” Smoke says, reaching into the inside pocket of his cut and producing a black sharpie. “If I’m not there. If I don’t make it—”
“No!” I shake my head and close my eyes, not able to bear the thought.
Smoke’s grip on me tightens. He tilts my chin up so our eyes meet. His voice isn’t louder, but it’s sharper, more precise, like he wants to tattoo his words into my memory.
“Listen, Hellion, and listen real good. First light, I want you to head to this address. It’s the Lawless MC compound. You’ll be protected there.”
I hold out my hand thinking he’s going to write on my palm, but he surprises me by pushing the fabric of my shorts up my leg, writing directly on the skin of my upper thigh.
“Less obvious,” he mutters. “Take this,” he says, unclasping a pair of the cuffs from his wrist and clasping them around mine. “Show it to them. They’ll know I sent you. Just get there and wait for me. Can you do that?”
“Yes. But you better be there, Smoke. I mean it.” I’m trembling. My lip quivers. “Is this good-bye or just good-bye for now?”
Smoke brushes his thumb over my cheek. “Always with the questions,” he says, a sad smile on his beautifully scarred face. “I’ll do everything I can to meet you there.”
“I’ll come with you,” I try to argue once more.
The sound of gunfire and shouting in the distance is all the argument Smoke needs.
“It’s the only way to keep you safe,” he says, softly. He tenderly brushes his rough thumb over my cheek, and I can’t help but to lean into his touch. I close my eyes briefly then look up at him through my wet lashes.
More gunshots. This time they’re closer. Smoke looks over his shoulder and then back to me. “First light,” he repeats with a much too brief searing kiss to my lips. “You wanted me to choose you, Hellion. Well, this is me...choosing you.”
My. Fucking. Heart. Breaks.
I can’t find the words to protest as he places branches over the cutout in the trunk to conceal my hiding space. I hear him jog off, and I silently cry into the dark space. I pull my knees to my chest and crawl as far back into the hollowed-out stump that I can.
Every gunshot I hear feels like it’s a direct hit to my heart because with each one, there’s a possibility that come morning light, Smoke won’t be there.
This is me…choosing you.
Chapter Forty-Eight
I movethrough the woods like a wild animal because I am a fucking wild animal. It’s dark, but I use instinct to creep up behind Griff’s men. I slit one’s throat; the blood sprays in my face. It’s warm and wet, and I don’t bother wiping it off as I drop his body quietly to the ground.
I move without making a sound. My boots don’t even crunch against the fallen leaves. I lay another man out, knife to the base of his spine. And then another, stab and twist to the neck.
I feel like a kid again. These woods are my home. I breathe in and use the smell of pine to fuel me.
