Unfortunately, not all my confusion stems from his accident. It comes from the events that occurred before we climbed into his Jeep, screaming at each other at the top of our lungs. I wanted something Luca couldn’t give me, but instead of showing me how I could have both my wish and him, he stripped away any possibility of it ever coming true. He took himself away from me.
When my eyes lock in on my mysterious stranger, I realize he hates this turn of events as much as I do, but he is also at a loss on how to stop it.
After a few seconds of silent deliberation, he secures a cellphone from his suit pocket. For his sophisticated suit and high-end haircut, I wasn't expecting him to pull out a relic. His cellphone is dated—perhaps even as old as me.
A small trickle of hope seeps into my veins when the gray-eyed man roars down the line, "This wasn't our deal, Henry. You guaranteed I’d get her out safely, not cause a bloodbath." A groove embeds between his dark brows. "There is a sniper gunning down agents in cold blood. . . No. . . Why would I bring in my own crew?"
Relief washes over his face a mere second before he hands the driver his phone. I swallow the bitter taste in the back of my throat when the driver nods three times, hands back the stranger’s phone, then steps out of the car. He heads for the trunk like a man on a mission.
I feel like I’ve stumbled into a crime show when he removes a long-barreled assault rifle nestled between the spare tire and the jack. He sets up a tripod on the now-closed trunk before screwing the rifle into place.
After a quick adjustment of the scope, he fires one bullet. It is swift and precise, and as quiet as death itself. Oblivious to my gaped jaw and bugged eyes, he dismantles his gun, places it back in its rightful spot, then joins us inside his car.
Without a word spoken, he continues our trip. Stunned at his nonchalant response to the loss of life, my gigantic eyes drift to my backseat companion. He shrugs, a little lost.
Even though I am on the verge of coronary failure, my heart rate settles when my eyes return to what could have been a valley of death at the bottom of the hill. The blond-haired agent is back on his feet, hobbling toward the concealed entrance of Substanz, dragging the unresponsive agent behind him.
Chapter Five
“A business proposal?” I flop onto my bed in my dorm, still as stunned as a mullet. “Two federal agents were shot, one severely, all to issue me a business proposal?”
The man who introduced himself as Isaac halfway through our hour commute to my college dorm offers me a handkerchief. I almost rib him about his old-fashioned ways before an image flashing before my eyes makes vomit charge up my esophagus. It is the lifeless flop of the dark-haired man’s head when his fellow agent dragged him to safety. It brings horrid memories rushing to the forefront of my mind of another time I witnessed the same thing.
“Did he die?” I choke out, my words barely audible as I struggle to hold in the scarce bit of nutrients left in my stomach. “Was another man killed because of me?”
The mattress dips when Isaac sits next to me. “Nothing that happened tonight was your fault. It was a wrong place, wrong time scenario.”
I glare at him, calling him out as a liar without words. When he fails to hear my unspoken accusation, I say, “If I didn’t run, the agent wouldn’t have followed me. If he hadn’t followed me, a second agent wouldn’t have backed him up. If he didn’t back him up, he would have never been shot. How is this not my fault?”
Before Isaac can answer me, the shrill of a cell phone sounds through my dead quiet room. Thank goodness my roommate is in Tuscany with her parents, or how would I explain getting home at one in the morning with two suit-clad mafia-looking men in tow?
While striving to ignore my heaving stomach, I eavesdrop on Isaac’s conversation. I don’t know why I bother. He communicates with nothing but grunts and groans.
My brows join together when an unexpected chuckle joins his unscripted conversation. “I understand. Pleasure as always.” He snaps his relic phone shut before his gray eyes drift to mine. “Both agents will survive their injuries.”
I exhale a relieved breath.
It is quickly withdrawn when Isaac says, “But. . .”
He remains quiet, building the suspense.
“But. . .?” I encourage, hoping to move him along.
He keeps me hanging long enough for sweat to bead on my top lip. “The agent we interacted with in the field was wearing a wire. My source believes he has images of us on his device.”
I groan. It was either groan or cry; I went for the less pathetic one. I’m beyond relieved the agents aren’t receiving a visit from the grim reaper any time soon, but if we were caught on surveillance, everything we just went through was a woeful waste of time. I’ll still face charges, but instead of them centering around prostitution, they’ll add evasion, conspiring to commit a crime, and god knows what else into the mix.
I don’t want that. The only time my face should be splashed across the headlines is when I am revered as the best business lawyer in the country, not because I tried to sell my snatch to an undercover operative before I slipped his net with the help of a mafia-affiliated man and his disobedient lacky.
The inane beat of my heart triples when Isaac chuckles, apparently amused by my screwed-up-with-panic face. I’m glad he can find pleasure in my discomfort, but I am anything but overjoyed.
When he continues laughing, I sock him in the stomach. "Why are you laughing? Nothing happening is funny!"
He shrugs, not believing me.
When I glare at him so firmly, steam billows from my ears, he asks, “Have you ever watchedRugrats?”
“Am I an American? Of course I have,” I snap back, my tone snarky.
