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Ace’s heart fell. Because that was all he would ever be to the beautiful Sierra Madden. Another scumbag suspect to be handed over. Why would you even care what this woman thinks?
“Immediately after that,” she said, “Ice Veins called in the rest of my note, said I needed to pay off the final chunk by two days ago, or he was going to personally see to it that I came up a leg short.”
“A leg? He threatened to cut off your leg?”
“Smash it, sever it, shoot it... I didn’t ask for the specifics. All I know is I won’t be working, or making further payments, without two good legs to stand on. Which means I’m a dead woman if I can’t come up with the twenty-five thousand dollars that Selina promised me for bringing you back to your family.”
Twenty-five thousand dollars? Selina clearly wanted him back—and no doubt, locked up—in a big way, if she was willing to cough up that kind of cash. And it was crystal clear that the bounty hunter wasn’t about to—and couldn’t—set him free with her own health, possibly her life, hanging in the balance.
“So what if I told you,” he said, weighing the possibilities, “I’d be willing to pay you that same twenty-five grand. Get this gangster off your back forever, if you’ll only—”
“You have the money here?” she asked, the skin crinkling around her nose. “Just lying around this bunker?”
“Well, no,” he claimed. A knee-jerk reaction, when the truth was more complicated. And far too dangerous to share with a woman with a gun and such a pressing need. “Not exactly, but—”
“But nothing. I haven’t been in this business for a dozen years without having desperate fugitives try to buy me off before. I suppose you think I’m dumb enough to take a personal check?”
He made a scoffing sound, thinking quickly about how would be the best way to do this without guaranteeing that he turned his bunker hideaway into his tomb. Because he might feel for Sierra’s predicament, might even find her sexy, with those big green eyes and that tight little body that could so handily knock him on his ass, but he’d be a fool to trust the woman with his life.
“You can handle an online transfer, can’t you?” he asked. “I can’t access my accounts from here. We’ll need to get well away so I can use my cell without leading the authorities straight here.”
He’d been fantasizing for weeks about returning to the surface. Feeling the wind whispering against his skin, smelling the fresh scents of the underbrush and seeing the outlines of the foothills, along with the variegated greens of the foliage at this elevation. But he knew that the moment he powered it up again, his phone would ping the nearest cell towers. And surely the police would be working with his telecom provider, waiting to spring into action the moment they could get a bead on his location.
She looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Ace. If I’m seen anywhere with you and I don’t turn you in like I agreed to—”
“It’s not like I can afford to take that kind of a chance, either,” he said. “That’s why I took the precaution of stocking this place with some things I might need in case I had to disguise myself.”
“You sure you’re only a first-time fu
gitive?” Amusement quirked the corners of her mouth. “Because you’ve really done a first-rate job on your prepping.”
He snorted and shrugged. “It’s the CEO in me. I’ve always been a big believer in the value of insurance. Let’s see if I have anything here in my bag of tricks that might work as a disguise for you, too.”
Pulling a duffel from one of the boxes on the shelves, he reached to unzip it.
“Not so fast,” she warned. “Push that over to me first, will you? Slowly.”
Looking up at her, he said, “Listen, I can assure you that you’re holding the only gun I had with me in the bunker.”
Red-blond brows, a shade darker than her hair, rose. “Forgive me if I need to make sure you haven’t planted a little insurance elsewhere.”
As she squatted down and checked through the bag’s contents, he said, “If I give you the money for this loan shark, I’ll need your promise you won’t lead the police to my bunker’s entrance.”
Sierra pulled out a cowboy hat, followed by an oversize snap-buttoned shirt and a pair of Western boots. “And you’re willing to take me at my word on that?”
He offered a half smile. “If you won’t sell out your honor for a man like Ice Veins, I have some hope, maybe this much—” he pinched his fingers about a half inch apart “—that you won’t do a woman like Selina such a favor.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Sierra offered. “You drop that money into my account, and I’ll make myself scarce. I promise. I’ll take off for Vegas before sunup. And I won’t volunteer any help to the police with their investigation.”
“But if you’re brought in and questioned?”
She huffed out her disbelief. “You aren’t seriously asking me to outright lie to the cops for you? Come on, Colton. I’ve already told you what I will do. What I can do if I want to keep my license.”
He stared a challenge at her, certain that all he’d have to do was wait before his silence and the lure of desperately needed money would convince her to give up even more. It was a tactic that had worked for him more often than not during business negotiations.
But it was clear from Sierra’s expression that she wasn’t falling for it. Clear enough that he dropped the idea of sweetening the deal with an additional sum of money almost as quickly as it occurred.
“You’ve heard my terms.” She rose from her seat, the gun held firmly in her hand. “So are we still dealing? Or do we make the drive to the police station instead?”
