MY LEG BOUNCING, MY NAILS tapping on the windowsill, I fumed. What the fuck did André know about proving anything?
Sitting in the driver seat, Dane adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at me. “Unless they shoot an RPG at the vehicle, you’ll be fine.”
“Great.” Awesome. “Fucking perfect.” A cage on wheels. “I’ll sit in the fortress while you all wash his feet.”
“Stephens isn’t the messiah. No one’s washing any feet.”
“The point—” I sighed, not even knowing why the hell I was talking to Dane, except that if I wasn’t talking, I’d be busy being scared as fuck of him “—is that this is a bullshit idea, for a bullshit asshole, to get a bullshit promise.”
“Agreed.”
“Then why the hell are you here?” Besides the fact he looked crazy enough to enjoy this sort of suicide mission.
Dane didn’t hesitate. “Because Luna saved my life.”
I paused. Was there anyone in that garage André hadn’t saved? “Pretty sure he didn’t save it just so you could throw it away.”
“No, he didn’t.” Dane turned in his seat and his fuck-you-up-in-a-heartbeat stare landed on me. “I offered to take care of this. Luna declined. He does things as close to legal as possible. This is his gig, his resources and you’re his woman. At the end of the day, he has to live with himself, so this is how it’s going down.”
Well shit. I crossed my arms and leaned back, staring out the window. “Pretty sure you just told me you offered to kill my father and you don’t give a shit about collateral damage.”
“I did and I don’t.”
“Then how do you live with yourself?” I threw his bullshit speech right back on him.
“I don’t.”
I looked up at a man I was sure killed for sport.
The corner of his mouth moved almost north. “I don’t live alone.”
André yanked open the front passenger door.
His scent filled the car as soon as he slid into the seat, and I was reliving this morning all over again. Him rolling me to my back and shoving my thighs apart as he unceremoniously thrust into me. Then he’d cupped my face and slow fucked me without ever taking his eyes off me. He didn’t speak, he didn’t make a sound, and he didn’t kiss me until after he’d come inside me. My stomach fluttered and my chest tightened at the memory. It’d been the single best moment of my life.
“Kendall.”
I looked up.
Holding a phone out to me, André studied me with a stern expression. “You remember what to do?”
I cleared my throat and took the phone. “Answer when you call.” He was Skyping or FaceTiming or some other fancy shit to get me into his conversation with River. Why River would care if I was alive or dead if he was getting the guns, I didn’t fucking know. But André seemed like he knew what he was doing, and at this point, the train was moving so fast, I was only on for the damn ride.
André turned to Dane as he drove out of the garage and pulled onto the still darkened streets. “Anything goes south, get her out.”
Dane nodded.
Scared, stressed the fuck out, I opened my mouth. “What’s going to go south? You said you had this handled.” The intermittent glow of passing streetlights hit his profile, and I saw his jaw clench.
“Not arguing with you, chica.” He checked the magazine on his 9mm.
Chastised, I didn’t say shit.
The city lights gave way to county roads as we sped toward the edge of civilization. Growing up, I never knew the River Ranch property was so close to a major metropolitan area. I didn’t even comprehend what that meant. I’d been told stories by some of the women about what life was like on the outside. They’d always painted it in such a dour light, I’d never wanted to live in a place with sidewalks and fire hydrants instead of pebbled paths and spring flowers.
Too soon, Dane had pulled onto the long access road for the River Ranch property. A few miles in, he slowed.
André touched his ear mic. “Collins, Brandt, report.”
I pushed the button to turn on my comm, and I remembered his fingers brushing my hair aside as he’d gently put it in my ear.
“In position,” Jared’s voice came through my earpiece.
Nausea crawled up my throat.
“No activity,” Collins added quietly.
“Jarek, report,” André demanded.
“Taking position,” Jarek replied.
My mouth went dry as my heart rate sped up.
Dane slowed and pulled to the side of the road a mile out from the front gate. I glanced behind us and saw the truck and another Escalade.
“Blaze, ETA?” André asked.
His breath fast, as if he were running, Blaze answered. “Hundred yards out, southwest approach. No activity.”
André looked at his watch but didn’t say anything.
Holding my breath, I started counting.
I got to fifty-eight.
“Hold positions, two minutes to gate,” André commanded.
My stomach dropped.
“Let’s do this. In and out.” André nodded at Dane. “Go.”
Dane floored it.
“Let’s fuck some shit up,” Talon drawled through my earpiece.
The SUV flew down the dirt road and careened around the last bend. My heart in my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears, a place I never thought I would see again came into view. The high chain-link fence with rolling gate and wooden guard house was exactly as it had been, but everything looked different.
Dane slammed on the brakes and the truck and other SUV fanned out, both pulling up along the side of us.
My stomach lurched, and I forced bile down as my childhood reared up. Looking physically smaller than it ever had, it still loomed larger than life.
His rifle in one hand, André reached for his door as Dane threw the SUV into park.
I panicked. “André.”
Gorgeous brown eyes full of determination cut to me. His voice dropped and he took two precious seconds he didn’t have. “I got this, chica. Stay here.” He jumped out of the SUV and slammed the door as a scared-looking teenager stepped out of the guard house, weapon drawn.
His rifle held up in one hand to show he wasn’t going to shoot, his phone in the other, André bellowed, “River Stephens, get out here now!”