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They drove out of the street, but only to loop around another street to return. Before they passed the house, he slowed to a stop and slouched.
“What are we doing?” she asked. “You want me to walk from here?”
Without waiting for an answer, she reached for the door handle. Lenny lunged over to grab her and haul her back. “Stay in the fucking car,” he hissed.
His urgency became clear when she glanced out of the windshield. Harry was leading his men across the street. His men. Daire. Right there, maybe fifty feet ahead. In the flesh.
She lunged for the horn; the idiot goon intercepted her.
But that wasn’t all. That wasn’t it. She fought. Pushing, pulling, hitting, slapping, punching, doing whatever she could to reach the link to her Heart. But it didn’t matter. Leonard shoved her against the door and threw his fist out, catching her cheek, dazing her stupid. Sitting there, blinking, she couldn’t move even as he adjusted the jacket over her hands to cover the rope again.
Her head throbbed as her eye pulsed in its socket, she’d never been hit like that. Not wham in the face without warning. She should’ve expected it. Fighting him when he had to answer to Zeus was probably an idiot move. But she couldn’t do nothing, couldn’t always live to wonder what might have happened if she’d just taken a shot.
They stayed in the car, suspended like that, for God knew how long. She didn’t get with it until the car started moving again, slow, just rolling along the road, past the house, only to stop again. He was checking where the guys had gone. That’s what she guessed from the way his head bobbed and swayed to see past her.
Once Leonard was happy, he got out and came around to pull her from the car. She could run, except her head was still foggy. So she found herself trotting along as he dragged her across the street to the mailbox.
He shoved her toward it, right up close, so she had to lean back to try opening it. Only then did the idiot remember her hands were bound together and reached around to do it for her.
Grabbing the letters inside, she feigned checking through them.
“You get it?” he asked. “Just take ‘em all.”
“It’s not here,” she said, pulling back when he tried to yank her away.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t read every envelope. Nothing but fairy magic would put the keys in Vegas right then.
“What the fuck,” he hissed, looking around. “Where the fuck else—”
“The garage,” she said. “Sometimes they have mail in there. I don’t know when it arrived. It could be there already.”
“Fine,” he said, jabbing her in the ribs to prod her up the driveway.
Most of the letters in her hands were addressed to Hugo Balfour, of course, the house belonged to him. Nestled in the middle was a familiar scrawl. Her handwriting. Her letter to Daire. It had arrived and he hadn’t seen it.
The garage door was open, which she hadn’t really questioned until that moment. Did Olympus worry about locking up or did they want to tempt people in to be snapped up by some special booby-trapped rig? Seemed more their style to welcome people in only to show them their true colors after it was too late. Unfair to think of her Heart, but the rest of them? From her experience?
Dragging her feet as they crossed into the garage, she kept her chin down, trying not to look at the Beast. Daire lived in there, she could feel him, sense him, smell him. Damnit. She couldn’t be distracted. Think. Think. The keys weren’t in there. They wouldn’t find mail either. Maybe Daire kept a weapon somewhere that she could—
A harsh thud from behind stopped her dead. Braced, she didn’t know what the hell Lenny was doing. Something heavy crumpled to the floor, loosening her curiosity. Spinning around, Tess stopped breathing when she took in the view. Standing on the other side of the unconscious Lenny laid out on the concrete floor…
TWENTY-EIGHT
HER HEART WAS RIGHT there, angled chin tipped down, peering at her over the top of his aviators. The unimpressed expression on his face didn’t even really register. Tess was just… thrilled. Sucking in a breath, she dropped the letters and rushed to jump over Lenny. Except she couldn’t… her hands were tied, so she came to a screeching halt rather than throwing herself at her Heart like she wanted to.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice the joint being cased?”
“Baby,” she whispered, tears warming her stinging eyes. “I knew I would see you again.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, tossing aside the black thing she hadn’t noticed in his hand until he was freeing himself of it. “What’s going on?”
When he closed the last of the space between them and tried to scoop his hands onto her face, she ducked back, suddenly aware of the camera in the top corner. He must have seen the movement of her eyes because he twisted to look over his shoulder in that direction.
“I have to get out of here,” she said, realizing that was the moment. The only moment. She needed to leave, and she needed to do it fast. “Thank you, Heart, I… Thank you.” There wasn’t a lot of time, so she backed up some more. “Z is in a suite at Hugo’s hotel. He won’t be there for long… He’s leaving as soon as I go back, except, I’m not going back… Oh God…” Breathing out, she rushed at him, overwhelmed by the need just to be near him. Pressing her face to his chest, she closed her eyes, freeing the tears from her lashes. “I love you so much…” It probably wasn’t right to say the words on the cusp of running out on him, but she couldn’t not say it anymore. Leaning back, she was pleased when he took off his shades to hook the temple into the neck of his shirt, even though he was scowling at her. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it. I’m sorry if you ever thought for a second that I didn’t. I love you.”
“But I can’t kiss you,” he said. Of their own volition, her eyes flicked over his shoulder. “Why do you keep looking at that camera?” Shit. How did the guy do that? How did he just know her mind? “Little Red, what’s going on?”
“I have to leave.”
