“So what’s the plan now? You’re just going to drive me randomly across the country?”

Hunter didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes firmly on the road as he said, “I know where I’m going to take you.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You can’t take me anywhere! I have to go back home and deal with whatever the hell just happened. The police are going to want to talk to me. Edna is going to want to talk to me.”

“Who the hell is Edna?”

“My boss, and the owner of that very lovely shop that just got torn apart tonight.”

“I’m sure Edna will just be happy that you’re safe.”

Gabby was sure that Edna would care a lot more about her safety than the shop being destroyed, but she wasn’t going to point that out. Ever since the incident, Gabby had kept a firm handle on her life. She got good grades, married a safe man, and cut all ties with the more criminal-oriented members of her family. But somehow everything had still gone to shit anyway. Her safe husband left her for the town floozy, and now her safe job was totally in jeopardy. And all because she’d done one unsafe thing. She should’ve never contacted Hunter. She should’ve let bygones be bygones and kept her mental image of him as her teenage knight in shining armor. Now she had people shooting at her, and her knight in shining armor was... well, something else.

It was just like history repeating. She’d been in danger, and Hunter swooped in and shot the man hunting her. But this wasn’t like before. Gabby had never forgotten that night. Not even the small details. Everything was burned into her mind as though it happened yesterday.

She’d been curled up in a corner like the coward she was at the time, eyes closed and hands over her head as she just waited to die. But then she heard the door slam open, and Hunter was there. Gabby could tell by his wide-eyed stare that he was just as shocked as her over what was happening. After that brief second, he hadn’t hesitated. He ran right for the guy her father had sent to kill her and tackled him to the ground.

The struggle for the gun had been short, but time had been moving funny. She could’ve sworn it was an hour when it was more like fifteen seconds. And as soon as Hunter had the gun, he fired. It wasn’t a deliberate shot like it had been tonight. Gabby still wasn’t sure whether he meant to fire that bullet or whether it had been an accident. It had been a gut shot, so the guy probably would’ve lived if he’d just stayed down. But instead of giving up, something her father would’ve never allowed him to do, he pushed himself up and went back toward Hunter. Gabby knew he had no choice, but as he fired once more, this time directly into the assailant’s head, it seemed louder. Final.

She thought she’d been safe then. She thought she’d go to the hospital, tell everyone that Hunter was a hero, and try to pick up the broken pieces of her life. But instead, Hunter had been taken away and charged with murder. As much as she protested, the police ignored her. In that short timeframe, Gabby had become much less naive. They weren’t ignoring her because they didn’t believe her. They were ignoring her because Hunter was trouble. He was one of her father’s employees too, albeit for just a few weeks. He killed one of his own, and now he was being punished. There was nothing she could do to help the man who saved her. Even when she tried to write to him or visit him in prison, she’d been unable to locate him. The young, not-so-innocent kid had been swallowed by a corrupt system.

But this wasn’t a kid anymore. And if he was an innocent before, he was something so much darker now. She was sure his size had something to do with that. Even his hands seemed to dwarf the steering wheel he was still gripping tightly. His forearms and biceps seemed oversized in the small sedan he was driving. That beautiful hair, dark brown with a tinge of red with just the tiniest bit of curl to it, didn’t lighten his menacing presence. The style she’d always seen on those cute little naked baby angel drawings. What were they called? Cherubs?

Well, whoever decided that’s what cherubs looked like had obviously never seen Hunter. Even little curls at the top of his head couldn’t drown out the darkness.

And she’d called him here. The past had given him a sort of hero-like glow in her mind. Had she forgotten this? Or had he changed? As clear as her memory of the attack was in her mind, everything else had gone fuzzy. After the attack, she’d questioned so many things about her life. About her family. About things she might’ve helped her father do without even knowing it. Things she might’ve been complicit in by accident.

“You should let me go,” she said carefully.

“Not a chance. I don’t know who that guy was, and you don’t know who he was. But you can bet your ass it has something to do with me coming to town. You think I’m just going to leave you alone there now? You contacted me, asking for help, remember?”

“What? No, I told you that was a lie. That was just me being an idiot.”

“Maybe subconsciously you knew you were in danger or something.”

“No! I can pretty much verify that my subconscious had no idea I was in danger. I’m sure whatever happened was just a fluke, okay? It’s not like guys usually come out of the woodwork to kill me. This is just a weird coincidence.”

“I can promise you that two people trying to kill you is not a coincidence. It’s not bad fucking luck. It’s a problem.”

Even though she knew he was right, she still didn’t like what was happening. She didn’t want to be dragged away from her home only to go with him to God knew where. Maybe she’d only been in trouble because he showed up. Maybe if he left, she’d be fine. But she didn’t want to say that out loud. That would once again be implying this was all his fault, when she was the one who started it all. “I’m really sorry I got you into this, all right? I promise I’ll never bother you again. But you need to take me back, Hunter. This is the last time I’m going to ask nicely.”

Hunter finally took his eyes off the road to look at her, but this time with a little wicked grin on his face. “Oh honey, I’d love to hear you ask meanly. Be my guest.”

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Hunter didn’t know how he got himself into this mess. Ever since Sterling had plucked him out of jail and hand-groomed him to be the mindless drone that he was, he never had issues like this. Most people would be offended at the notion of becoming a mindless drone, but not Hunter. He liked it. Doing what he was told, not questioning orders. It was an easy life. Especially considering questioning orders was the thing that had kinda fucked him over from the beginning. Scratch that. All of his life choices had fucked him over from the beginning. His decision to drop out of school, his decision to start peddling shitty drugs at a young age, his decision to save Gabby.... Every single choice he made had caused him misery in some way or another. So unlike the other guys who had always resented working for Sterling, he’d never really minded it. It had taken the responsibility off his shoulders. And a man with no responsibility was a happy man, in his eyes.

But here he was making his own choices and fucking his life over again. Gabby was so goddamn pretty, and he was pretty sure she didn’t even know the effect she had on him. To be fair, he told her to fuck off, so that probably was the reason for her ignorance. God, just a few minutes of her and he lost all of his sensibility. The second she’d been in danger, he’d reacted on pure gut instincts, threw her in his car, and drove off as quickly as possible. And now she was asking him to take her back, which he would never ever do, not in one million years, so he was effectively kidnapping her. Minutes! Minutes was all it took for him to lose his damn mind.

There was one thing he was sure about, and it was where he was taking her. He was taking her to the only safe place he knew of, which was the compound that Toni and Hart had set up. And it left all multitude of other problems in its wake. For one, everyone would see her with him. God only knew how much shit he was going to take from the other guys. Well, maybe less than usual, now that Slade had up and abandoned them when he got his new family, and Tristan now had his own side chick. Well, that was wrong. Slade hadn’t abandoned them; he was more of a ground coordinator now. And he was pretty sure he saw Tristan shopping for engagement rings for his side chick.... Still, they were all distraction. Hunter hadn’t really considered them a distraction, until maybe a day ago when Gabby had sure as hell distracted him, and he never even kissed her. He could only imagine how distracting a hot lady could be if you were getting a steady stream of sex.

Damn it. At the very thought of sex, his second head was ready and at attention. He gripped the steering wheel tighter, if that was even possible, and glanced at Gabby out of the corner of his eye. Her head was back, resting against the seat, and she was looking out the window. She was so still, he thought she was sleeping, but the uneven rise and fall of her breasts gave her away. She wasn’t sleeping; she was just trying to make herself as invisible as possible. That was fine. The less interaction, the better. It wasn’t as though he had any good news to give her. There was still a good ten hours of driving between him and the compound, so hopefully she got some sleep. It was going to be a long drive....

Even though he knew where he was going to take her, he still had a multitude of other problems. For starters, what was he going to do with her once he had her there? This wasn’t like a Slade or Tristan situation. She wasn’t his girlfriend he was hiding. This was a civilian he basically plucked out of her life and transported against her will. He wouldn’t be able to keep her there for long, not if she wanted to leave. He had a feeling Toni wouldn’t condone kidnapping of innocent women. For Hart, a lot depended on the circumstances. Maybe he could convince his boss that he was doing this for her own good if Hart thought she was really in trouble. Hart had proved himself more than willing to hurt a civilian if it meant keeping them safe. Toni felt the same way, but she would get hung up on the against-her-will thing. She wasn’t too shy about being a feminist, and normally Hunter agreed with her views. But this was Gabby. He would hurt her as much as he needed to, as long as it meant she was safe and protected.

He laughed inwardly at the thought. Someone hanging around him to be safe and protected? He wondered whether she was right. Maybe if he turned around and dropped her back off in her normal, safe existence, she would stay safe. She really had only ever been in danger around him. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn the car around. They didn’t know enough about what was happening. It had to be related to her father’s drug operation, but he didn’t know how. He’d always kept tabs on Brighton, but as far as he could tell, the drug ring had ended around the time that he went to jail.

That didn’t mean the criminals had gone away, though. Easy money was addictive. He’d seen every sort of illegal activity there was. Be it peddling drugs or people, there were all sorts of ways to make money under the table.

But why would this new operation think he was a threat? It had to be connected. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe in coincidences. But he couldn’t verify that it was safe for Gabby to go back until he knew the truth.

And he couldn’t let her go until he knew she was safe.