Page 130 of Savage Surrender

The distance between us is hard to tolerate. I keep seeing her face, the exact moment she understood that the plan wouldn’t include us staying together, when her eyes found mine as though there had been some mistake I could still correct.

The plan is to head straight to Winston’s as soon as we can shake the tail.

Owen’s shoulders slump as Ezra follows the other traffic boarding the ferry.

There isn’t room to pace like my body wants to. All I can do right now is wait.

No one gets out of the vehicles that have been following us. Passengers leave their cars all around us, doors slamming, voices passing close to the van before fading toward the stairs. Part of me thinks Bianca might come tearing down the narrow row between the cars.

A ferry worker passes carrying a stack of orange cones.

Between the three vehicles, they have the van covered. I don’t recognize anything about the vehicles or what I can see of the men. They’re not wearing uniforms. There are no logos on the side.

Owen reaches behind his leg and puts his hand on the case beneath the monitor shelf.

“Not here,” I say. The last thing we need is a public shootout. If they stay where we are, we’ll manage until we get off the ferry.

His eyes cut to the family walking past our rear doors. A little boy drags his palm along every vehicle he passes while his mother tries to pull him toward the stairs. Owen’s hand leaves the case.

Ezra’s phone vibrates against the console. He picks it up and reads. The hand holding the phone is gripping so tightly the tendons rise along his wrist.

“What?” Owen asks. “What is it?”

Ezra reads it aloud. “Got the car. Girls are safe. Call when you can.”

Owen’s head drops against the side of the van and he closes his eyes. Tristan visibly relaxes. Ezra reads the message again before he types with both hands and sets the phone facedown on his thigh.

Bianca is okay.

Winston’s pack is the next best thing to keeping an eye on her myself.

The ferry horn sounds, deep enough to vibrate through the floor. Engines start around us. Doors slam. The lanes fill with people returning to their cars.

Ezra starts the van.

All three of the vehicles we’ve clocked are off before us, and there’s no turning back.

Owen braces a hand beside the sliding door. “Once we get distance from the terminal, let me out.”

“And then?” Ezra asks, his eyebrows lifting a fraction.

“I’ll get rid of them.”

Tristan glances at him. “What a stirring plan, Owen. Does the second half involve returning to Bianca alive?”

“You’re staying in the van,” I say.

His jaw shifts, but he gives me one short nod. Good enough for now.

Four lanes of traffic give Ezra room to move. He takes the first turn without signaling, and the service truck follows. He cuts across the next intersection as the light changes, forcing a delivery car behind us to brake. The truck gets trapped on red.

For half a block, the road behind us is empty.

Then the pickup slides out of a gas station ahead and falls in two cars back.

Ezra sees it at the same time I do. He turns right, left, then through the rear lot of a strip mall where a back road spills into a neighborhood. The pickup stays on the main street.

There’s an SUV waiting at the next intersection.