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“We were leaving the garage when I heard gunshots,” I tell him. “I think a bullet grazed my arm—”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, Vic twists around in the front seat, reaching back to take my arm in his hands. He inspects the spot, running his fingers over the raised mark.
“No bleeding, at least,” he murmurs. “You’re sure it was just a graze? You didn’t get hit anywhere else?”
“No.” I swallow. “It’s okay. It doesn’t even really hurt.”
“What else did you see?” Malice wants to know.
Ransom takes over, answering his brother as Vic finally releases my arm. “They were in a car, whoever they were. Speeding down the street. I know shit goes down at Luis’s place sometimes, but this wasn’t like that. It didn’t feel… random.”
“Was anyone else around?”
“There were some of Luis’s guys hanging around like usual, but no one gave us any trouble. I got the part I needed, and we were about to head out when it happened.”
“And you didn’t see who it was?” Malice asks.
Ransom shakes his head. “I was a little busy trying to get us down behind the bike. But the windows were tinted, and they were going too fast anyway.”
“Fuck,” Malice snarls, pounding the wheel with his fist. “This can’t just be about Luis or his suppliers. That’s too big a fucking coincidence. There’s no fucking way.”
I twist my fingers together, my heart racing all over again. “So you think this was about me? About us?”
Malice’s gray eyes flick to mine in the rearview mirror. “I think we have to go forward assuming it was. We take no chances.”
I nod, feeling sick. But Malice is right. There are plenty of people in Detroit who hate me—who hate all of us—so it would be foolish to assume that an attempted drive-by was just a random act of violence. The more likely scenario is that it was targeted. Someone is trying to take us out.
We get back to the penthouse, and the guys surround me again as we get out of the car. Ransom’s head is on a swivel as Malice locks the car, and all of us are tense and quiet on the elevator ride up. Once we reach the top floor, Vic holds me back from going inside the penthouse until Malice and Ransom can do a sweep inside.
The thought that someone might be in there, lying in wait for us, ready to kill any or all of us, is enough to make nausea roil my stomach.
“Okay, it’s clear,” Malice says after a minute, beckoning us inside.
As I step over the threshold, my phone rings in my back pocket. The sound is startlingly loud in the silence of the condo, and it makes me jump. I scramble to dig it out of my pocket, and when I see the name on the caller ID, my heart clenches.
Olivia.
Malice is standing close enough to me that he can read her name on the screen, and he looks up from the phone, his gaze locking with mine.
“There are no coincidences,” he says grimly, his jaw tight.
He’s right. There’s no way it doesn’t mean anything that Olivia is calling me less than an hour after someone shot at me.
My throat is tight with anger and worry as I slide my finger across the screen to answer the call. I lift the phone and put it on speaker, forcing words out as Ransom and Vic come to stand close beside me too.
“Were those your people?” I demand, skipping over any pretense of niceties. “Did you hire someone try to gun me down in the street?”
Her laugh is cool and calm in my ear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, of course,” she says evenly. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin doing something like that. I don’t dabble in crime, unlike your filthy little boyfriends.”
My fingers curl around the phone, irritation pricking at me. Of course she won’t admit it. Not on the phone, where I could be recording her words. She’s smarter than that, which is why she’s managed to ‘dabble in crime,’ as she put it, for years without getting caught.
“It sounds like you must be having a rough afternoon,” she continues, and I can practically hear the smirk in her voice. “Someone shot at you, you say? That’s terrible.”
“Cut the shit, Olivia,” I bite out. “I know you sent them.”
“And I’m telling you I didn’t.” She chuckles. “But if someone shot at you, my dear, I wouldn’t act so surprised. After all, you painted a target on your back when you became Troy Copeland’s widow and inherited his entire estate. Just like you said, you’ve leveled up in this world. And that comes with its own set of risks. Do you understand?”
My brows pinch together tightly, and I glance at the men around me.What the hell is she getting at?
