Page 98 of Bared

“Shit.”

After Jagger and Ozias sliced her short in unison, it was Oz who went on once more.

“Bugger me. Things are really starting to make sense now.”

“Sense like how?” Jayd pressed. And what about the damn plane?

“Like how Brickity-brack here really is all over every TV feed in the city, wanted for offing Louis LaBarre in cold blood.”

“What?” While more ice attacked Jayd’s bloodstream, every one of her nerve endings ignited in outrage. “Have they even asked any of the people who were there? The witnesses who saw Trystan pull the trigger?”

“We only know what is being broadcast across the city,” Jagger stated.

“Crikey.” Ozias swept the wedge cap off his head and twisted it in his fist. “I knew you didn’t stir that shemozzle, mate.”

“Fucking right I didn’t.” Brickham looked ready to tear up one of the roadside trees by the roots and hurl it into the cemetery wall. At this point, in spite of Oz’s pledge of faith, Jayd was ready to help with the task.

“Damn it,” she cried. “This is not fair!”

“Fair doesn’t sell newspapers or link clicks, Pixie.” Brickham’s voice was disturbingly deep. His taut posture was equally unsettling.

“And every media outlet in town is rejoicing about the surge,” Ozias revealed. “But in many ways, so were we.”

“Which is why we have to get you out of here,” Jagger asserted, indicating to Brickham. “The sooner the better.”

Brickham wheeled back around, still stiff and tense. “Bugging out is definitely a necessity,” he conceded. “But that shit’s on me, my friend, not you.” He pulled in a lengthy breath, making a noticeable effort to fix his gaze down the street. “I can also move faster if I’m on my own.”

Jayd twitched. All right, it was more like a stunned jerk. That was not the clarifier that mattered, anyhow. That priority belonged to the agony slamming her chest and the sharp pain everywhere else. If he truly pulled up a tree and dropped it on her, the excruciation would barely compare.

But this time, her hesitance helped her. Instead of her lunging forward and calling Brickham five kinds of an idiot, Oz did it in a more considerate, but commanding, way.

“You’re getting a walloping negative vote on that plan, mate.”

Brickham’s answering glower was so predictable, she almost laughed. Almost. “Wizard man, this isn’t a pack of flying monkeys to zap out of the sky.”

“Damn straight it isn’t.” To her shock, Ozias cracked a relishing smirk. “We’ve got much better wings waiting, anyway.”

And there was her airplane explanation.

One that she was already half expecting—but now fully questioning.

“And that is going to work out how?” she charged, folding her arms. “If Brickham is now ennemi du public across all twenty arrondissements, do you think they will just let him stroll through security at Orly or De Gaulle? For that matter, even at Beauvais? And even if we get him onto a plane, do you think the Americans will just ignore the fact that Brickham is wanted for murder here?”

“Wanted,” Oz echoed, stressing the word hard. “But not convicted.”

Brickham squared his stance. “That’s not going to matter, and you know it.”

“Fully aware of the deets, mate. But now we’re squabbling semantics, when we should be getting into the damn car before the gendarmes make another sweep this way.”

“He is right.” Jagger grunted. “More than you want to know.”

Brickham clawed a hand over his skull, baring his teeth. “Fuck.”

Jayd pressed close to him again. With every new inch, his conflict weighed heavier in her own psyche. “We have to at least get out of this neighborhood, Sir.” She weathered his irked side-eye for deliberately using the honorific. That did not stop her from dipping her forehead to his bicep, going for all the irresistible submissive points she could get. “We can do that faster in a car.”

He growled again, but it was with half an effort at best. “Damn it,” he bit out, for her ears alone. “Do you have to be so adorable and right?”

Five minutes later, they were holding hands in the second row of a silver SQ7 that seamlessly blended with the traffic through the north part of the city. Even past midnight, plenty of pedestrians were still out enjoying the summer night, with busy traffic to match.