I withdrew my hand like I’d been burned, unsure why I’d done that in the first place, but Elijah was babbling again on the phone.
“…no need to involve your father, right?” he was saying in a slightly panicked voice. “You killed my guy, the score is settled. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Connor flicked another puzzled look my way, then shookhis head like he was trying to rearrange his head. “Make sure your guys are gone from Meadowridge before I get back, Elijah. Anyone I see wearing a Crusades tag will get executed on sight, no questions asked. Am I clear?”
“Absolutely, understood, you won’t see them near the school again,” the wannabe gangster gushed. “And as for telling your father…?”
Connor rolled his eyes and mouthed a silentfor fuck’s sakebefore glancing at me again, thoughtfully. “I don’t see why he needs to know,” he finally decided. “Unless you try to shoot me again, of course.”
“Of course,” Elijah quickly agreed.
Connor ended the call, then gusted out a heavy breath. Silence filled the car with a heaviness that physically hurt, but I refused to be the one to break it. What could I even say when he’d just so thoroughly fried my brain with revelations?
He seemed in no rush to explainanythingso we just drove in tension for a while.
Then he glanced my way with a thoughtful squint.
“Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” he asked, shocking the hell out of me.
Eyes wide, I shook my head. “Absolutely the fuck not. Nothing happened, Connor. Nothing. I never ever want to talk about it, and so help me if you tell Andrew—or Ethan—that we kissed, I will cut your dick off and make you swallow it.”
His lips twitched, then curved into a full-blown grin. “Vicious brat. I meant your panic attack. You’ve got some real trauma with guns, huh?”
Oh.
“I don’t want to talk about that, either,” I muttered, my face utterlyflamingwith embarrassment.
He nodded and seemed content to leave sleeping dogs lie as he drove. An hour later, he slowed and pulled into a gas station that looked like it hadn’t been operational in a hundred years.
“What are we doing?” I asked, fear sparking in my chest. Was he going to kick me out and leave me there as some sort of punishment? He said he’d punish me for being stupid, didn’t he?
Connor shifted the car into park and turned off the engine, then unclicked his belt. “Waiting for your ride,” he informed me, then climbed out of the car.
Confused, I followed and pulled his hoodie on properly to keep the warmth. “My ride? I don’t?—”
My question was cut short with the roar of a motorbike approaching, then a blacked-out sleek machine sped into the gas station where we waited. The rider was completely covered in leathers, not a single inch of skin showing, and I stiffened with anxiety as I noted the enormous gun strapped to the side of the bike.
Panicked, I shifted until Connor was positioned as a human shield in front of me.
“Cute,” he muttered with a scoff. “You know bullets would go straight through me and still kill you at this range?”
My throat tightened. “I’m well aware.”
The biker chose that moment to flip his visor open and I instantly recognized the warm brown eyes creased in concern.
“Haze,” I breathed in relief. “What areyoudoing here?”
“He’s taking you back to school,” Connor informed me, checking his watchagain. It was one of those fancy military style ones and I was just now suspecting he had some sort of tracking and or communication installed in it. “I need to take a trip home.”
“To speak with your scary overlord father? I thought you said you wouldn’t tell him?”
Connor shrugged. “I lied. Go on, Haze will see you safely back to the house. I won’t be long.”
I took a couple of steps toward Haze before hesitating. “I can’t. Haze, you…” I flapped my hand, trying to explain the wholedon’t touch Haze or he will get violentwarning that Brodie had given me without actually having to say it.
“It’s fine,” he rumbled from within the helmet, then reached to the far side of the bike and produced a second helmet, which he extended my way.
“His issue is skin contact,” Connor said quietly, his lips brushing my hair as he leaned close. “Leathers should dull things. You’ll be okay, brat, get on the bike.”
