“Okay, then, we can skip the small talk. You ever set up a gauntlet?”
There was a long pause. “Shit.”
“Yep. So what street should I—”
“Hold on,” he said, and we heard mutters and discussion in the background. When he came back on, it was with clean directions on which streets to take, where to turn, how far along to hit the gas.
“There’s one more thing,” I said quickly before he hung up. “We’re not in one of the town cars. Look for a black four-wheel drive.”
He took that in and then sighed. “Vitali, either you have a death wish or you justreallywant to make my life hard.”
I chuckled. “A little of both, maybe. Anyways, figured you should know.”
After the call ended, Aidan stared at me. “What’s a gauntlet? You mentioned that in New York, too. What is it?”
“It’s just a defensive maneuver. If you got a tail. It’s, uh. It’s a way to lose it.”
“So why does it matter so much which car we’re in?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to scare him more than he was already. “They know the other car better. That’s all.”
“No. That’s not all.” I said nothing, but he figured it out on his own, and I knew when, too, from the sharp breath he took. “The other car was bulletproof.”
“Bullet resistant,” I said, but he ignored me.
“Teo—tell me, please.What’s a gauntlet?”
“It’s the thing that’s gonna save our lives,” I told him. The Hummer was making its move now, and I didn’t have time to divide my concentration. “Hold on. This asshole’s coming for us.”
He took his glasses off before I even needed to suggest it, and I hated that.
I hated it.
Whoever was in that Hummer, whether it was Jim O’Leary or someone else, he was evil as far as I was concerned. No one but the devil himself would ever dare come for someone as pure as Aidan.
The Hummer caught up with us as we made our way down a long stretch of straight road, gave us a love tap on the ass hard enough to jerk us forward. I put my foot down once I regained control of the wheel, got some distance between us, and thought again about the rifle I’d taken off that guard. It was early morning, there was hardly any traffic—but I didn’t like chancing it even so, and I could hardly shootanddrive. Besides, I could already hear Aidan begging me not to shoot anyone.
So I just kept driving, my foot hard on the pedal, taking late turns where I could, but this was a vehicle made for mountains and dirt, not sliding through sharp turns. It was tough but it wasn’t fast. Every corner I took slowed us down and although the Hummer wasn’t much better at taking them, it still gained on us again. Another smash, harder this time, sent us fishtailing, and Aidan cried out.
“Teo—”
“Pray, baby. Please. Just pray.”
My greatest fear was that they’d have another car waiting for us somewhere. If they had—if another Hummer came head-on—I’d have nowhere to go. The streets of Beacon Hill were picturesque and narrow, not exactly made for defensive driving.
But we were close now; I recognized landmarks even in the dark, and the street names were the ones O’Hara had given me.
“When I say hang on, you hang on,” I told Aidan.
“Teo—”
“I mean it.”
I took a hard left onto the agreed street. For a moment I thought we’d been fucked over. I could see no one on the street, no cars around that anyone might be hiding behind. But then I looked up, higher.
Just about every window in every building was bristling. The Donovans were there, alright, every rifle they had aimed down at the street. As we came burning up the road, all those gun barrels swiveled and aimed, right at us.
I’d know in a split second whether we’d been betrayed, whether we really could trust them or not.
