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Quickly, I slid off Braden and we hunkered down so whoever it was couldn’t see us if they looked in our direction. Braden huffed low, and I could feel the tension all around him.
“There are only two houses on this road,” he gritted out.
“I know.” And we both knew there weren’t new renters coming to the home next to ours. Braden still had that one rented out so we’d be alone.
Dread settled into the pit of my stomach. The people in the car turned off their lights the closer they got to our house. Instead of stopping, they went further and parked at the other home down the road, the one Braden had rented for him and Carter. The vehicle was black or maybe even a dark blue; it was hard to tell. I couldn’t see anyone inside. I knew that my heart was about to beat out of my chest.
“Braden,” I whispered, my throat thick. There was so much uncertainty in my voice I barely recognized that it came from me. In the ring, I was fearless, but I didn’t feel that way now. There was no reason for someone to creep down our road in the middle of the night. I was more worried about Braden than myself. If it were Finn, he wouldn’t be coming in with just his fists; he’d have guns. We couldn’t compete with that.
Braden looked over at me, his body tense. “It’ll be okay.” It took a few minutes, but two guys got out of the car, dressed in dark clothes. I couldn’t see much, as it was too dark. Braden jerked his attention to the blanket and held out his hands. “The binoculars. Let me have them.” Heart racing, I handed them to him, holding my breath as he lifted them to his eyes. “I don’t recognize them.”
“Let me see,” I said, holding my hand out for the binoculars. “I’ve seen Finn’s men.”
He gave me the binoculars, and my breath shook as I let it out. When I peered through the lenses at the two men, I didn’t recognize either one, but it didn’t mean they didn’t work for Finn. They were both bulky and muscular with black hair, each holding a gun. One of the guys fiddled with the lock on the door and got it open.
“Fuck,” Braden hissed. “Whoever they work for, they’ve found us.”
I lowered the binoculars. “What are we going to do? What if they break intoourrental house? They’ll see that we’re still here.” I was thankful I turned off all the lights, and our rental car was in the closed garage.
Braden scanned the woods behind us. “If they do, we’ll wade through to the other side of the river and wait them out. Then, we’ll grab our stuff as soon as they leave.”
“It’s a good thing we’re already packed.”
The two men disappeared inside the house and emerged a few minutes later. I thought they were going to leave, but then the backseat door of the car opened. My stomach coiled into knots when I saw a man get out. I didn’t have to look through the binoculars to know who it was.
“It’s him,” I whispered.
Braden took the binoculars, growling low when he looked through them. “Son of a bitch.”
I’ve always fought against fear, but right now, I was petrified to the point I thought I’d vomit. Nevertheless, Finn was obviously willing to go to great lengths to find us. He and the other two men talked for a few minutes, but then they all returned to the car and left. I breathed a sigh of relief when they didn’t stop at our house.
We waited for a few minutes to make sure they didn’t come back, and then we took off through the water to the riverbank. Braden’s grip was achingly tight as he pulled me up the hill to the house.
“Get the keys and I’ll grab the bags,” he commanded.
I did as he said and ran inside to grab my purse and the keys. Once in the garage, I lifted the car's trunk lid just in time for Braden to toss our suitcases inside. I jumped in the car, and Braden got behind the wheel. When we got to the top of the road, Braden turned the opposite way Finn and his guys went.
“Where are we going?” I asked, clutching my stomach.
Braden pressed on the gas. “I don’t know but far away from here.”
I almost expected to see headlights behind us, but there was nothing—only darkness. I tried to think of somewhere we could go, and then it hit me. There was one place we could be safe with no trace of us ever being there.
“Oh my God, Braden.” He glanced over at me, his face illuminated by the dashboard lights. “I know where we can go.”
His brows furrowed. “Where?”
“East. We have to get to Maine.”
CHAPTER31
BRADEN
Our destination: Hallowell, Maine.
There was a bed and breakfast there, owned by two retired undercover agents, Jason and Aylee Avery. Jason was the brother of Reagan’s aunt Brooklyn, and from what I heard, he was pretty badass at taking down the bad guys in his time. I’d only met him and his wife once when they came to California to visit with their son and daughter, who were a couple of years older than Reagan and me.
It took four and a half hours to get to Hallowell, but we didn’t want to show up on Jason and Aylee’s doorstep at seven-thirty in the morning. So we drove around and found a park along the Kennebec River. Once parked, I grabbed my phone and pressed Seth’s number.
