“Okay, no need to get uppity. Just thought maybe you and Kylie might want to stay and relax a little while longer.”
Every last hair on the back of Kylie’s neck stood at attention all at once. “How do you know my name?”
“Oh.” The manager’s smile slipped. “Uh, your boyfriend here must have said it when you two were checking in.”
In less than a blink, Devon swung the man around, pinning him to the vending machine with a graceless thunk.
“No. I didn’t. Try again.”
The manager sputtered, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “Guess she just looks like a Kylie. Must be that pretty face.”
“Don’t insult me, or I’ll get pissed off.” Devon pressed a thick forearm over the man’s windpipe, and oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, Kylie wanted to get out of here, like yesterday.
“Okay. Okay!” the manager choked, his wild-eyed stare flattening on her over the hard angle of Devon’s shoulder. “Fagan’s coming for her, and he wants blood. There’s nothing you can do. His network is huge, and he’s got everyone within five hundred miles looking?—”
“When?” Devon leaned harder, his body language an unspoken embodiment of don’t fuck with me.
The manager’s lips peeled back in a thin grimace. “Now.”
Devon dropped the man into a heap on the sidewalk. “Kylie, get in the car. Go.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice. She ran to the Challenger, flinging the passenger door open hard enough to make the hinges squeak. Throwing herself inside, she slammed the door in her wake, her breath coming in such rapid bursts that she was certain she’d either pass out or throw up.
Devon shoved his duffel in the back seat and punched the ignition button, sweeping the parking lot with a cold, glittering stare. “Get down as far as you can,” he said, the words barely reaching Kylie’s ears past the roar of the engine as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“Do you see anything?” she asked, unable to just sit there, quiet and helpless.
“Not yet, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s there.” He maneuvered the car through a turn, although toward what, Kylie had no clue.
Oh, screw this. “Let me help,” she said, sitting up in her seat to take in their sun-drenched surroundings. “I can keep watch out the back window while you get us out of here.”
“No. Keep your head down. You need to stay safe.” Devon split his attention between the road and the rearview, but managing both views had to be the mother of all balancing acts.
Kylie refused to budge. “I get that this road is pretty empty, but we’re not going to be very safe if you wreck the car, Devon. Believe me, if bullets start flying, I’ll be the first person to hit the damned deck. But for now, I’m helping.”
Whether it was for her attitude or her argument, she didn’t know, but Devon gave in with a swear. “Fine. We’re going to backtrack for a few miles, then try to pick up an alternate route through South Dakota. If you see anyone—anyone—behind us, you need to say so. Got it?”
“Got it.” Kylie did a one-eighty against the passenger seat, trying to recalibrate her pulse to something that vaguely resembled normal as she stared through the back windshield. Small houses dotted either side of the dusty, two-lane back highway, the road bisected here and there by a handful of narrow cross streets and hidden driveways.
A minute passed, then two. Devon fired up the GPS on the Challenger’s dashboard, bringing up their location and mapping out an eastward route as he drove.
“Okay. According to this, we can take this road in a straight shot until we get to?—”
Oh. God. “Devon.” Fear slipped down Kylie’s spine with cold, clammy fingers. “A red pickup truck just pulled out from that cross street, and it’s catching up to us, fast.”
She turned toward him at the same time his gaze arrowed in on the rearview mirror, and he ditched the GPS in favor of pulling his gun from its holster.
“Hold on, and be ready to take the wheel if I tell you to.”
Devon slammed his boot over the accelerator, the car rocketing down the empty back road fast enough to make Kylie’s stomach drop all the way to her hips. With her heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of her voice box, she reached behind her, pulling her seat belt over her chest while still keeping her eyes trained on the pickup truck behind them.
How the hell had it gotten closer?
“Devon.” She’d barely gotten the word past her lips when a figure leaned out of the truck’s passenger window, aiming a trio of rapid-fire shots in the direction of the Challenger.
“Holy shit!” Kylie cried, ducking behind her seat. Although the shots seemed to have missed the car completely, the urge to panic still flared to life in her veins.
But then Devon pinned her with a sure, cool stare, jerking his chin at the steering wheel. “I need you to take the wheel, Kylie. Just stay as low as you can and keep us on the road. You with me?”
