Page 66 of One Second After Another

The vehicle jumped, and the tires slid on the path more than once, but even so, Luca kept the car under control. Going at a speed that would have frightened a weaker woman sitting in the passenger seat, Penny, however, wasn’t bothered.

“Are you going to say something?” Luca asked.

She glanced away from the bag in her lap—the only one Luca put in the backseat and not in the trunk; hers, with her weapons and other items she liked to have close—to see his knuckles were ghostly white from the tight grip he had on the steering wheel. But other than his stronghold on the vehicle, the man was unfazed.

He stared at her, waiting.

Penny didn’t know what kind of response he wanted, saying, “It was just a matter of time before someone found us there. That they would find you—if you’re not around to be found, then you must be with me. That should tell you something right there.”

It took Luca a moment.

Penny waited him out.

“The League attacked us tonight,” he murmured, gaze darting back to the road after their brief exchange.

He couldn’t see it since his attention was back on whatever was coming at them on the dirt road, but Penny still shrugged. “The Elite don’t know about your connection to me maybe beyond my past, and I’ve not connected myself to that in any way.”

Except him.

But her mother’s people didn’t know that. Only the organization she had been working for that was now out there hunting her like a fucking dog. As if she was the one doing something wrong when she was just trying to finish what they had allowed her to start. Just because they allowed it didn’t mean they also got a say on when it ended.

Full stop.

She respected The League for what they had done with her—for what they gave to her. And she would not go out of her way to purposely hurt anyone from an organization that for years had been the only family she had to her name. That wouldn’t stop her from doing whatever she needed to do to meet her end goal.

They could get in line.

Or get out of the way.

“Shit,” Luca snarled.

His harsh exclamation accompanied the screech of the Vanquish’s wheels when Luca slammed on the brakes without warning. Penny jerked forward violently with only inches to spare before her face smashed into the dash. She didn’t have her seatbelt on because honestly, that had been one of the last things on her mind. The only thing that saved her from getting a broken face—or worse—was Luca’s arm that caught her right under her throat.

Not that it was an easy impact. His fucking arm was like a bar, and when she hit against him with her chest, all of her breath went with it.

“Sorry,” she heard him mutter. “Fuck, are you ok—”

She didn’t hear the rest of his concern because in the midst of being thrown forward, she had finally gotten a glimpse of what waited for them around a bend on the dirt road. She realized then why Luca had slammed on the brakes as hard as he did, and why her fucking distraction with their conversation and the bag in her lap had been foolish.

Of course, The League had a backup. Why wouldn’t they? Penny knew how they worked. She was one of them.

The lights of the Vanquish illuminated the man standing directly in the middle of the road. Though the road wasn’t that big, to begin with, the bend had been widened, it seemed. For what reason, Penny wasn’t sure but it allowed the other vehicle—with lights turned off—to park off to the side. Out of the way.

“I almost killed him,” Luca said under his breath, staring out the window at Cree who still stood in the middle of the road staring at the two of them in the car like he didn’t have a problem in the world. Hell, the man even smiled.

That was most unsettling of all.

“Apparently,” Penny mumbled when Cree pointed a single finger at her and then crooked it as if to say come here, “I’m not the only one around here that trusts your judgment when it comes to driving.”

Luca’s head snapped her way. “What?”

It wasn’t important.

Just a thought.

Penny reached for the handle on the door at the same time Luca asked, “You’re not seriously going out there to talk to him, are you?”

With only Luca’s T-shirt that she had managed to throw on once they were in the car, and her panties, Penny didn’t even bother to reply to him before she stepped out into the cool night air. She figured, what did it matter—why waste time stating the obvious when her actions would speak for her?