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“It’s close enough. No one ever expected you to be a passive partner in this.”
“I don’t want a partner. I caused this problem, and I want to solve it.”
“That’s not how this works. I’m here, and I promised Xavier I’d do everything I could to protect you. For that to work, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust easily.”
“I could’ve guessed that. Neither do I.”
“But we both trust X.”
“Yes, and for whatever damn reason, he thinks we’ll work well together.”
“Fine. I have a place for us to go.”
“Where?”
“A safehouse run by my former commander. It’s also a ranch.”
“No.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few farm animals. I thought you could even pack your clothes all by yourself.”
“Just when I think maybe I can stand to work with you…”
“Look, the men there are the best. Several of them were on my team in the marines. Grant and his brothers will do anything to protect me. I didn’t want to involve them, but this whole thing started because I was trying to save our whole team.”
“Then I guess they owe you.”
“They might think that, but I don’t, and that’s not why we’re going there. We’re going there because other than X, they are the only people I trust completely.”
“Yeehaw. Sounds great.”
I smiled as Darren put the car in gear and got us on the road to the airport. Once we were on the interstate, he glanced at me. “Do you want to call X, or do you want me to be the one to do it?”
“He’s going to be pissed I know what’s going on, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and he’ll blame me for it.”
“I don’t see how he can since I recognized Abdul.”
“I still spilled the secret.”
“What else were you going to do at that point?”
“Call him,” Darren said. “Put him on speaker.”
I found a cord in the car that I could use to plug in my phone. Once my info showed on the screen, I made the call.
“What’s wrong?” X asked as a greeting.
“How do you know anything’s wrong?” Darren asked.
“Oh, it’s both of you.”
“You don’t sound happy about that,” I said.
“A report came in about an alarm going off at your hotel. Something’s wrong. Spill it.”
“One of the men we’re concerned about showed up at the new hotel.”
“It was Abdul.”
“Fuck.”
“I know your little secret now. Darren told me. I don’t appreciate being lied to.”
“It was for your own good.” X’s voice was calm and level. He clearly had no remorse.
“I can take care of myself. I’m the only one who should be out here. Darren has no business in this.”
“Darren is excellent at taking care of problems like this. He has solid resources.”
“You have every resource at your disposal.”
“Yes, but I can’t specialize in everything. That’s why I have a few people I trust.”
“I hope Grant is still one of them because that’s where we’re going.”
“To the ranch?” X asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s not a problem, but you need to get there faster than you can by car.”
I already thought of that,” I said. “The Marchesis owe me. Can you get them to send their plane to the closest airport?”
“Lucien’s not going to like this.”
“I don’t really care what he likes. I don’t care what anyone likes right now. I want these men dead.”
“We are working on that,” X said.
“I told him,” Darren said. “I also told him he didn’t have to handle this himself, but you already know how stubborn he is.”
“I see the two of you are getting along fabulously.”
“Of course we are, but you knew we would, didn’t you?” Darren’s voice was filled with sarcasm.
X just snorted. “I’ll have the plane there, and I’ll let Grant know what to expect. Check in with me when you get close.”
A few hours later, we were settled on the Marchesis’ plane, ready for takeoff. As the pilot did her final checks, I felt Darren’s eyes on me, and I turned to look at him. “What?”
He shrugged. “I was trying to imagine what it’s going to be like staying with you and several of your friends.”
“They’re not like me. Well, not all of them.”
We didn’t say anything else for a while, then I made the mistake of staring too long at Darren. He’d been concentrating on something on his laptop, but he paused and looked up at me.
“What the hell was that in the car?” I regretted the words as soon as I said them. I didn’t want to talk about whatever this was between us.
Lust. That’s all it was, all it could be.
“I told you that was me shutting you up. I needed to break you out of your ranting cycle so we could make a plan and move on.”
“So it had nothing to do with how much you needed to kiss me again?” Danger. Danger. What the fuck was I doing?
