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I turn to look back, but all I see is the belly button of a rotund man.
“I told you she was going to be a handful,” he says, shoving the chair I’m in to a corner, but from my vantage point I can see the security cameras on the computer.
“Let’s go see what Tig’s gonna do to him.” The tobacco coated one nods his head toward the door for the portly man to follow.“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Tig’s got a bit of an… anger issue.”
The two of them crack up and my heart pounds quick in my chest.
When the door closes, I can hear that there’s a speaker on the desk broadcasting what’s happening in the garage bay. I stand and reach for the speaker, turning it up enough so I can hear, but not enough for it to be heard outside of the room. I sit back down and watch the computer screen. I try to use my mouth to untie the rope, but one of them apparently tied up Houdini and I don’t know what the magic is.
Dean runs a hand through his hair and my fingertips tingle remembering how soft that hair is. Silky. He paces and I remember the same move from last night. The tension and unease soak into me. He keeps looking to this room, but there’s a jacked truck in the way of him seeing me, plus the windows haven’t been cleaned since the place was built, so it’s just a haze of shapes outside.
“This is it, Tig. I mean it. I do this last job and that’s it.”
The man he’s facing rubs his chin. “We’ll see.”
Dean moves quickly into the man’s face and the man’s security detail moves in and it takes two of them to hold Dean out of striking distance.
“No, it’s not we’ll see. It’s I’m done.” I swear I see spit fly from his mouth as the words pepper out. “And let that girl go, she’s got nothing to do with this. She…” he pauses and looks back toward me, “She was just fun for a night.”
Bile rockets to my throat. And considering we could’ve created a life last night, caught up in the moment and forgetting protection the second and third times we connected, I’m starting to hear the words, no, the truth, my mother tried to instill in me.
How could you, Dean?
But then I move and I feel the note he left me crumple in my jeans pocket. It had hearts in the corners. Afterall, today is Valentine’s Day.
I’ll find you. I love you. Dean
“She’s insurance, Sanders. You mess up, she gets messed up.”
“Do it,” Dean says, “I don’t care.”
The man leans forward. “Yes, but does she?”
I don’t want to die.
I can’t watch anymore. I lean back in my chair and with one kick of my foot, the screen goes black.
I’m notsure how long it is, but when the door opens, the man I’m starting to believe is the devil himself enters. And it’s not Dean. He’s the devil’s apprentice.
My heart can’t stop hiccupping every time I think about Dean saying those things. Did he mean them? Is he going to let me die?
The man I think is Tig fingers his hair over a balding spot. “Well, well, someone has a temper.” He chuckles and I sit straight in the chair waiting for some retribution. I’ve never been hit by a man, and today’s not going to be the first time.
He rounds toward me and I freeze. “You don’t need the rope with me. You’re not going to hurt me, and I’m not going to hurt you… yet.” He unties my wrists and I rub them as the blood sears back into my fingers, creating pins and needles.
He sits in the leather desk chair and leans back, lighting a cigar. Jameson Briggs, Colt’s father, smokes cigars, and I’ve seen the labels, Davidoff. They smell like chocolate, leather, white pepper, and toasted nuts. This smells like dirt and rotting bark. And it makes me homesick for Storm Canyon.
“Your boy out there, he and I go way back.”
I stare at a NASCAR racing poster on the wall that has a schedule from 1988. I’m thinking the less I say the better.
He leans back and puts his boots up on the desk. The silver tips are polished to a shine and I can see myself in them.
I look like hell. Feel like it too.
“Dean’s one of my boys. He tried to boost a car from me about nine years ago. He was only sixteen, but man he had the balls of someone twice his age. So I took him in and gave him a home. He’s the best of the best.” There’s a little bit of admiration in his voice and glance at him.
He shakes his head. “At least he was, up until about four months ago, when he decided he was done. No one is done until I say they’re done. My needs come first and I still need his… skills. But I don’t take betrayal lightly, and I’m assuming by my broken monitor, you heard everything, and you don’t either. Do you, peanut?”
