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“It has to be this weekend,” Fox says. “I can’t get around the Landry’s security system, it’s why I’m paying you. They’ll be at the mayor’s Memorial Day party, like you said. I’ll do it while they’re there.”
Shock filters through my system. He wants to break into our house in a way that we won’t be able to detect while we’re at Mayor Taylor’s party? We’ve been going to the mayor’s house for his holiday weekend celebration for years, ever since Mom and Dad got their promotions. It’s stuffy to be around all the rich assholes in town gathered in one place compared to when it was only my classmates for his daughter Jenna’s party, but I’ve always gone. How am I going to go while knowing he is trying to get into the house?
Fox would really go that far to get to me? Does he have any limits?
My throat thickens and it becomes hard to breathe for a moment, my vision going fuzzy at the edges from the force of the dizziness crashing into me. I close my eyes tight and try to breathe through the bout of panic without alerting them to me hiding in the back seat. An ache sears my chest.
When I get myself under control, the car is quiet again. Lana must be gone.
With the kind of access she sold him, he could get at me anytime he wanted. My stomach knots as I brush my fingers over my leather bracelet, touching the stones. I don’t have anything in my room he could possibly be shocked to uncover. Nothing he could use against me to start more rumors about me at school. None of this is connecting the dots to make a clear picture.
We’re moving again. Fox takes fewer turns as he drives. I stare through the sliver of light bleeding into my hiding spot without seeing. My throat stings with the questions swarming it, needing an outlet. I want to kick his seat and scream at him, demand to know what the fuck he’s planning. To let me in.
This feels bigger than his efforts to bully me. It would be crazy for him to pay our cook so he can bypass our state of the art security system. He’s able to get at me more easily than that, something he’s proved time and again in the last few weeks.
He said something about my parents that sits like lead in my stomach. He knows what they’re capable of. The way he said it makes chills break out across my skin. Hate like I’ve never heard before, deep and vicious and deadly.
“Shit,” Fox spits before taking a sharp turn that snaps my attention back to him.
I’m jolted by the force of it, scrambling to brace myself so I don’t go flying across the floor in the back. He curses again and the tires of the Charger screech as he speeds up suddenly. We whip around another bend. I can’t hide anymore. I have to know what’s going on.
While he’s distracted by driving, I carefully move the bag and drop my blazer, remaining crouched low out of his periphery. Trees fly by the windows in a blur and the car speeds down an incline. So we were up in the mountains, I guess. Behind us, I hear the rumble of an engine. We’re being followed.
Fox seems irritated, but not about to lose his head. He doesn’t have his leather jacket on, the black t-shirt stretched around his powerful biceps. For the first time, I get a sense of his tattoos. The intricate design of a wave covers most of his left upper arm and disappears beneath his sleeve. It makes my throat burn and my wrist tingle against my stone bracelet to know he has an ocean tattoo. I want to see the rest of it, to discover what those feathers I glimpsed near his neck are.
He pushes a hand through his dark hair, tousling it. I can just make out his profile, jaw clenched. A muscle tics in his cheek as he flexes his white-knuckled grip on the wheel, the veins in his forearms protruding. He darts pissed off looks at the rear view mirror and clicks his tongue.
“Pain in the ass,” he grumbles.
My pulse thunders as he drives away from the tail following his car. He’s skilled but we’re moving terrifyingly fast, whipping around corners. It makes my nails dig into the dark interior, but I’m only partly worried. The other part of me is flooded with the thrill. Adrenaline courses through me and I have to keep reminding myself to stay low and not jump up to whoop.
I doubt he would appreciate my enthusiasm for his driving while he’s being followed, and that’s not even touching the fact I’m hiding in his car.
As he’s taking another turn, his body twists to check over his shoulder.
The exhilarated smile falls and my heart drops into my stomach as his eyes
lock with mine.
Fuck.
Fox sees me.
The growl that sounds from him might as well be the roar of an infuriated bear. His expression twists into a violent scowl as he faces front. He says nothing and my heart pounds.
“Fox,” I whisper.
He ignores me, but I catch the way his whole body tenses. The wheel creaks beneath his grip. I fall silent, limbs stiff from being in my hiding spot for too long. Watching his profile, I ease off the floor onto the back seat. He makes another displeased sound that makes my heart thud, catching my gaze in his rear view mirror. It lasts seconds before he cuts away to look at the road, but it could’ve been an eternity.
Now that I’m not hiding beneath it, I see what’s inside the duffel bag: dark clothes, some kind of techy tracking device, and binoculars. There’s a gun and my heart clenches. The mental image I conjured was right and emotions collide in a confusing swirl. The only thing missing is fear. Fox has a gun and it should scare me, but it doesn’t.
Glancing behind us, I see the tail. A big black SUV speeds up, gaining on us. It doesn’t have any markings or a license plate from this angle. They’re getting closer and my eyes widen.
“They’re going to ram the back!” I shout.
Right before it happens, Fox makes a hairpin turn down an alleyway as we reach the outskirts of the residential center of town. The SUV can’t follow with the same precision Fox has in the Charger. He takes advantage, making a series of quick turns as soon as we reach the end of the alley.
We’re able to lose the tail, but my heartbeat doesn’t stop racing because Fox doesn’t relax.
