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Handsome rescuer-slash-kidnapper’s gruff interjection cuts through my inner monologue, and his bike jolts forward. He twists it, positioning it and himself in front of me, and offers up his hand. “He never goes for the lunch rush. You’re too busy for that. He left you, and she was waiting for them to show up. They made her a deal, a lot of money, enough to set her and your dad uptown for life. The only problem was, I got to you first. Now, you can keep walking down this road, walk right back into the arms of the people who betrayed you so they can go for take two on their deal of a lifetime, or… you can come with me.”
He closes his hands into a fist when he sees something he doesn’t like on my face. Maybe it’s my stubbornness.
Then he leans closer.
“I promise you that if you stay with me, I’ll keep you safe. You go back there, I can’t guarantee it. Do you want today to be the last day of your life?”
That thought hits me, deep and cold. I feel like I can still smell the smoke on me, the sound of Emi screaming for me.
My feet stop.
He doesn’t look away.
I want to argue. I want to yell at him and scream. I want to demand he bring me back right this instant. I want to cry, and kick, and fight. I want to rage.
I don’t. Instead, I look down at my shoes.
“I don’t know who you are,” I whisper, my eyes starting to sting with tears. Stupid, stupid! This can’t be happening to me, this can’t be true, but… things are starting to add up. Slowly. Little things. How Emi had gotten a bunch of phone calls lately at the bar, but wouldn’t tell me who they were from. How Dad had a meeting uptown today…
My throat is tight and dry. Fuck…
“I’m Hadrion,” he says, gilded eyes half-lidding. “And I swear on my life, I’ll keep you safe. And not only that, I’m gonna get you out of Lowtown, forever.”
I don’t want to believe him.
But…
I look away, eyeing up the landscape. It’s desolate out here, and empty, and frightening. And right now, the only solid deal it looks like I’ve got out of here… is him.
Hadrion.
“Okay, but… I still want to go back to the bar,” I say, extending my compromise to see if it’ll be enough to tempt him, and hesighs, then nods.
I’m already moving toward the bike as he begins to speak. “I’ll take you, but you stay hidden. And we’re not going to go right away. Let’s give things a little time to cool off.” He reaches back and flicks open a secured case that’s behind the passenger seat of the bike. “You’re gonna ride right this time. Pillion. Grab the helmet.”
I may or may not be making the biggest mistake of my life, I think, as I grab the helmet out of its case and slam it shut again. But, given everything I’ve seen and learned in the past hour, what other choice do I have? At least for now?
I slip behind him, onto the bike, taking a moment or two to be grateful he’s letting me ride properly this time, instead of just hucking me over his shoulder.
“Ready?” Hadrion calls out, and I wrap my arms around him, tight and fast. The bike vibrates heavily against me and we speed forward, pavement unspooling underneath us as we race back to the city.
I hope it doesn’t feel like it takes forever.
5
Hadrion
Talk about finding a diamond in shit. Lowtown doesn’t give birth to anything good or even halfway decent — case in point, Katy’s sorry excuse for a family and their run-down shit-hole of a bar. The glitter and the glitz, the glam, the gold, are all reserved for uptown Detroit.
I thought this job would be an easy one. Get in, get the necklace from the girl, and ascend to my rightful place on the food chain. But the universe always seems to have this way of fucking with even my best laid plans…
She hasn’t stopped fidgeting since I got her back on the bike, her legs constantly shifting. I can practically hear the gears turning in her mind. Her breathing is unsteady, and her eyes are probably darting around inside her helmet, scanning the horizon as I take her from the shit world she knew to something totally new and different.
It’s distracting as all hell, her ass wiggling behind me, her thighs pressing against mine, her small arms wrapped around me.
Fuck.
I’m supposed to be on a mission, and here I am, getting hard with a raging case of blue balls, courtesy of the human woman clinging to me.
