Justus

My pulse raced as I sped down the highway, chasing a car that might or might not have been a blue Honda Civic with my kidnapped bride trapped inside. I must have looked like a psycho, weaving in and out of the left lane, honking my horn at assholes already doing better than the speed limit on a straight, open stretch of highway, and if I’d been driving my Z4, they might have (somewhat correctly) concluded that I was a rich asshole who felt entitled to the whole road.

Yet I’d never been farther from my Z4 or a carefree stretch of highway. I’d never in my life done anything as important as this. I’d never had anyone else depending on me, and the fact that it was Kaci—and that I’d gotten her into this—made me press the gas pedal harder than I should have. Harder than the poor little rental could probably take for very long.

I swerved around a delivery van and finally had a clear view of…what turned out to be an aquamarine Ford Taurus. Not Jared’s car. And unless Kaci’s was one of the small, dark heads just peering above the rear seat, aimed at a cartoon playing on a screen strapped to the back of the front passenger’s seat headrest, I’d been following the wrong car for miles and miles.

And Kaci was gone.

Fuck!

My fist flew, but I stopped it about an inch from slamming into the dash board. Hurting myself wouldn’t help anything, and further damage to the car would only run up a credit card bill Titus was probably already shaking his head over.

I eased off the gas a little to keep from scaring the family in the Taurus, then I passed them like a normal asshole, rather than a psychotic street racer. And as I was pulling back into the righthand lane, using my blinker and everything, a sharp movement in the traffic up ahead caught my eye.

I looked up just in time to see a car swerve to the right and plunge over the shoulder of the road into the desert, then flip. Then flip again.

Oxygen deserted me. The sudden pressure in my chest was paralyzing. I couldn’t make out the color of the car from here, but I knew without even a flicker of a doubt that it was a blue Honda Accord. And that Kaci had somehow caused that crash.

That she might not have survived it.

The cars around me began to slow. The Ford Taurus dad was already on his phone, staring at the wreck as he—presumably—called 911.

I had to get to Kaci. But when the first car stopped on the shoulder of the road to help, I realized my rescue attempt would have an audience.

Shit.

I pulled the rental to a stop on the shoulder, in the middle of a line of gawker/do-gooders, then I slammed the gearshift into park and practically vaulted out of my car, without bothering to close my door before I raced around the hood. I peered over the shoulder at the wreck, blending into the gathering crowd just long enough to verify that the car lying upside down at the base of a hill was, in fact, Jared Taylor’s.

The front of the roof was crushed, the windshield shattered.

Panic seized my lungs and squeezed. Kaci…

I pushed my way to the front of the small crowd. “There’s a man! Someone help him!” A woman shouted, and sure enough, when I got to the edge of the embankment, I saw Jared Taylor trying to crawl out the passenger’s side of the inverted vehicle. Blood dripped from his temple and his hands looked scratched up, but none of that explained his trouble making it out of the car.

But my heart leapt into my throat when I saw that the rear windshield was totally covered in smears of blood. If Jared was driving, Kaci would have been in the back.

No.

“I got it,” I shouted as I scrambled down the rocky embankment. “Everybody stand back. The car could blow.” I highly doubted that was true, but the last thing I needed was human interference. Unless there was a doctor or nurse in the crowd who could administer first aid to Kaci.

Screw Jared.

At the bottom of the embankment, I ran twenty feet to the overturned Honda Civic, now characterized as much by dust and dents as by the dated blue paint. “Justus,” Jared called, and though his voice was strong, my name came out slushy.

His slurred speech and the bloody scalp told me he had a concussion, but I walked right past him and squatted to peer through the back window.

The rear of the car was empty, but…weird. A thick sheet of plastic had been screwed to the backs of the front seats, like the barrier between cops and criminals in a police car, and the bloody fingerprints on one end told me Kaci had snapped the damn thing in half to get out of the wrecked car.

And that she’d been bleeding when she’d done it.

She was hurt.

He would pay for that.

I squatted next to Jared, hyper aware that the crowd was still watching us, and that if I didn’t at least appear to be helping him, someone else might step in. And that we were probably already being filmed on someone’s cell phone.

“Where is she, you psychotic bastard?” I whispered as I peered past him to see that his legs were tangled in his seatbelt, one pinned between the steering wheel and the edge of his seat, which had been compressed during the wreck.

“She ran.” Jared flinched, as if it hurt to speak, and I hoped to hell it did. “I think she’s okay.”

“You better hope she is, because if there’s a scratch on her, I’m coming back to rip your arms off.”

“Big talk from a trust fund brat,” he growled, and his words sounded clearer, as if anger were giving him focus. “Your bitchy little bride caused this wreck, so any ‘scratches’ are her own fault.”

“Is he okay?” someone shouted from behind us.

I turned to look up at the crowd, shielding my face from the sun—and any cameras—with one hand. “Yeah. His leg’s caught, but I got it.”

“An ambulance is on the way!” another voice yelled.

“Great, thanks!” Damn it. I turned back to Jared. “I’m going to get you out of here, and I hope it breaks your fucking leg.”

“Do it,” he growled. “I can’t get in a human ambulance.”

But I was more motivated by his potential pain than by keeping him out of the hospital. “You know you didn’t make it, right?” I said as I grabbed him beneath both arms. “You’re several miles shy of the border. She’s still in the free zone.”

I pulled, and he shouted in pain. Then he clenched his jaw and spoke through gritted teeth. “If it were up to me, I’d tell you to take her. She’s not worth this. Man-eating little bitch.”

I pulled harder, and something popped. Jared screamed, and I peered into the car to see that his kneecap looked…odd. Even through his jeans.

It was dislocated. Or maybe I’d torn the damn thing off.

“She’s worth everything, and you’ll never get near her again.”

“It’s not her we want, you idiot,” he growled as I hauled him onto the dirt several feet from the car. “It’s you.”

“Well, you’re not getting either of us.” Before he could argue, I turned to the crowd still gathered up the hill. “Hey, could I get some help here? I think the car’s pretty stable, but this guy’s heavy.”

“I’m fine!” Jared called out. Then he muttered obscenities at me under his breath. But when he tried to stand, his dislocated knee folded beneath him and he crashed into the dirt with a less-than-masculine screech of pain. I might have laughed, if I weren’t hyperaware that Kaci was still out there somewhere by herself. Hurt and bleeding.

As two men scrambled down from the road, I glanced around, trying to figure out where Kaci might have gone. There was nothing but desert and a few rocky hilltops on this side of the highway, but—

My gaze caught on a small trail of dark droplets in the dirt, stretching from the car up the embankment to the road, about fifteen feet from where the crowd had gathered.

Shit. She crossed the highway.

One of the men who’d come to help saw me staring at the blood trail. “There was someone else in the car. A girl,” he said. “We called out to her, but she just ran off. Must have been in shock.”

“Thanks, guys,” I said as he and the other newcomer helped Jared to his feet. “I’ll see if I can find her.” While the injured enforcer glared at me, I followed the trail of blood up the embankment toward the highway.

At the road again. I waited for a couple of cars to pass, then I confirmed that the trail led across both oncoming lanes and onto the median. I couldn’t see any farther than that, but by then Kaci’s destination was obvious. In the distance was a small grove of trees, an oasis likely fed by a stream or small river, and—

Movement in that direction caught my eye, and I squinted.

Kaci. My chest ached, and renewed urgency spurred me into action. It was hard to tell across the distance, but she seemed to be limping. Or stumbling.

I hurried back to the rental, relieved to see that oncoming cars hadn’t yet ripped the open driver’s side door off, then I started the car and swung onto the road again as fast as I could. I took the first available turnaround, then sped back toward the wreck from the opposite side of the highway. When the trees came into view, I slowed and veered carefully onto the dirt, fully aware that the rental car was a sedan, not an SUV.

I drove past the thin length of woods and parked at the end, facing the direction we’d need to head to put more distance between us and the Southwestern territory boundary. Then I got out of the car and took off through the foliage.

Kaci only had a few minutes’ head start on me. I was determined to find her and make up for putting her in danger in the first place.

This was my chance to do the right thing—even if that meant risking execution to take her home.