Page 102 of Boneyard HEA

I wriggle, but his arm is iron, locking me into place.

“This isn’t for you, mister. It’s for us.” Rafael’s grip crushes my wrist, and I hiss at the pain then open my fingers.

“Why? Why are you helping him?”

“I’m not. We are in this car. You’re endangering everyone. He’s under control so there will be no more cutting him. Understood?”

I heave in a shaky breath, swallow, and feel his taut muscle against my throat. “Okay.”

“Good. Thank you. Now behave.” He releases me.

Behave. How fucking dare he say that. Takes me a while to really calm down and realize he is right. If I’m to knife Alden, I’ll do it later.

Without fuss, as if it’s nothing, I fleetingly touch my throat where his arm rested. I’m not turned on. I’m not. That would be so fucking stupid.

If only my clit wasn’t broadcasting, liar.

Whatever, I tell it back. And now I’m fucking crazy. I ease my thighs apart and look out the window.

“No one is following us, as far as I can tell,” Rafael says.

I shrug one shoulder. “I knew that.”

“You didn’t.”

I open my mouth to snap something smartass but choose not to.

There is a strange, tense undercurrent to this exchange. I’m annoyed but now it has nothing to do with Alden. Though he is giving me puzzled glances.

It’s five or six minutes of no conversation or threats before I ask the obvious. “Where are we going?”

“A house in the countryside.”

I can’t help worrying, but at least I have Rafael back there, waiting like a psychotic superhero to leap into action. The car purrs onward. It’s when we’re an hour outside London, having turned onto a small leafy lane, that his advice proves to be prophetic.

A man in a green balaclava steps from the right hedgerow and flips out a strip of spikes, dashes backward. The Porsche runs over it, pops its tires, and slews into a road-grinding zigzag then a screeching, ferocious spin that slams me into the side pillion.

Pain explodes sparks in my head. Then the world goes fuzzy.

Rafael

Multiple air bags inflate instantly, filling the interior as we shudder to a halt in dust and flying plant stalks.

Trusting this Alden is not something I was ready to do, especially with Georgia coming out of her timid shell and jabbing him with what is possibly a scalpel. So, I am ready for something to happen.

Not that the car having its tires retired is on my cards, but hey, I’m ready. The gun I picked up at the doctor’s surgery is under my hand—the weapon comes courtesy of the fraternity and that ASS agency. They don’t trust anyone either, even if they are spread thin.

With an inch of air to spare between me and the metal, and the side airbag deploying, I escaped being concussed as we carved through the hedgerow and into the adjoining field.

After pushing back the airbag, I lever and shoulder open the side door by brute force, watch Alden crawl out into the churned-up dirt.

Inside the car, Georgia lifts her head and looks dazed but is likely okay. The Porsche isn’t burning or likely to. I double-check that before I drop to lie sprawled in the flattened crop of what looks to be wheat. Acting dazed is wise.

I don’t know how many hostiles there are.

I debate whether to advise Alden then decide no one could be stupid enough to organize for his own Porsche to be ambushed.

“Get down!” I tell him. “Pretend to be injured. Do not fucking move.”