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His girl. It makes me smile.
My sweet musings are abruptly stopped when I hear Shane start cursing. “Fuck. What the hell should we do then? She’s got people who are gonna fucking notice if she goes missing.”
Missing? I think back to our conversation in the car and wonder again if Shane is a mob guy. I try to think it through. Is he lying about being Dominick’s guy?
If so, why would he run with me? Or maybe he’s not running with me? Maybe he’s kidnapped me for Dominick and is making it seem like I need to run so that I’m a cooperative and stupid victim?
But to what end? If Dominick wanted me dead, Shane could’ve done that multiple times already. We’ve been driving on some lonely stretches of highway, and he could’ve dumped my body along any of them and I likely wouldn’t have even been found.
Or he could be Sal’s guy? Protecting his boss, or heck, maybe taking me to his boss?
But Shane has been protective. I at least know that and truly believe that’s real. He wants to keep me safe, not turn me over to a mob boss to be handled like a witness in some B-grade movie. He’s even bordered on the near-obsessive sometimes, not allowing me to go into the convenience stores at gas stops without him escorting me, even if it’s just to pee.
No, I don’t think Shane’s a gangster, even if he’s worked for gangsters. There’s more going on, and I’m going to have to stay on my toes since Shane is hiding what that is, but I trust him. Lord help me, I’m listening to my gut and heart more than my brain, but that’s what I’m going with.
I hear him wrap up the call with Chucky and quickly hop in the shower, wetting my hair and scrubbing my body as fast as possible. Luckily, the soap is barely better than rubbing sand all over my skin and I’ve got plenty of reasons to hurry it up. As I emerge from the steamy bathroom, Shane walks past me, his face hard, jaw clenched.
I open my mouth to say something, not even sure what, but he simply shuts the door in my face and I hear the water start back up again for his shower. I pull on the same tank from last night and clean panties and sit down on the bed, fighting the urge to lie back on the scratchy sheets. “Not this time,” I promise myself softly. “I have to stay awake. We have to talk. There are too many questions that need to be answered.”
It takes Shane awhile, though, and I’m lying down by the time the bathroom door opens. Shane is quiet, tip-toeing to put his clothes over the chair before carefully sliding into bed behind me. Still, he can sense the tension in my body as he lies down, and he props himself up to whisper, “You awake?”
I turn to face him, curling up on my side as he lies on his back. “Yes. What did Chucky say?”
He looks down at me, his smirk visible even in the low light, that amused glint back in his eyes. “Who?”
“Stop jerking me around,” I reply. “You know who.”
“Were you eavesdropping, Maggie?”
I growl at him, sounding more like a kitten than the tiger I’d prefer. “Well, what did you expect? You’re not telling me anything. Two days ago, I was a waitress minding her own business. Today, I’m on the run from the fudging mob—oh, excuse me, mobs. Or what is the proper term?” I say, emphasizing the ‘s’ to illustrate just how crazy my life has become in the last forty-eight hours. “And you’re hiding stuff from me. Yeah, I eavesdropped. I’m furious. I’m . . . scared.”
My voice cracks, the fire snuffed out by the cold fear in my heart. Shane grimaces, like my anger and fear physically hurt him. “Come here, Angel.”
He pulls me to him, pressing my head to his chest as he wraps his arms around me, holding me tight, grounding me to him. “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you safe.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t even know what or who you’re keeping me safe from,” I reply, even as my body says it doesn’t care about all that, the comfort of having Shane hold me telling my traitorous body everything it needs to hear to relax. But I still talk, demanding even. “Tell me what Chucky said.”
Shane lays a light kiss to the top of my head. “Not too much, actually. Hitman is in the wind. They figured out who it was without your input. Dominick knows we’re gone, and he’s pissed and is trying to track us down. But Chucky doesn’t know if it’s because he wants to protect us or kill us. Dom’s playing this very, very close to the vest, which is his style.”
