Her nod was a default even though she was fifty-fifty at backing it up. “Just steer and watch the road? What are you going to do?”
Devon’s answer was the click of his gun’s safety and the whoosh of the driver’s side window disappearing into the doorframe. Kylie bit down on her lip, forcing herself to stare out the windshield in front of them. The road was pretty straight as far as she could see, and she leaned in to grip the leather-wrapped steering wheel from the passenger seat.
“Got it,” she called over the whipping wind. Devon shifted his body so his left boot replaced his right on the accelerator, twisting around to lean the right side of his body out the open window while his left foot still mashed down on the gas.
Spaghetti, meatballs, wine, and a double freaking helping of tiramisu. Kylie screamed the words in her head, commanding both hands to stay locked on the Challenger’s wheel. Devon squeezed off two shots with a loud pop-pop, and she sent up a prayer that one of them would hit something vital in the pickup truck.
Nope.
“Keep steering,” Devon yelled, readjusting in a blur. Three more shots blasted from his gun, the unmistakable screech of rubber against pavement telling Kylie he must’ve bull’s-eyed one of the pickup’s tires. A jumble of loud, indecipherable sounds flew in through the window, but only after Devon had slid back into the driver’s seat a minute later did she allow herself to turn and look.
“Holy shit.” The pickup truck had banked hard and spun off the pavement. Although the hulking vehicle was upright, it stood at an unnatural angle on the deeply pitched shoulder of the road, clearly out of commission.
“Are you okay?” Devon asked, his knuckles flashing white against the steering wheel as he darted a quick glance at her face. “Dammit, Kylie. You’re bleeding.”
“What? No, I’m not, I’m—ow.” The sting of her bottom lip didn’t register until he reached out to skim it with a gentle touch, but jeez, that hurt.
“You must’ve bit your lip.”
Kylie resisted the weird compulsion to laugh. “If that’s the worst thing that happens to me, I’ll take it and run. Do you think they’ll be able to follow us?”
“Not in that truck.” Devon threw a hard look at the rearview. “But this changes things. We’ll need to keep moving until Kellan can get some help our way.”
“Okay,” she said, sitting on her hands to keep them from shaking. You’ve got this. Devon’s got this. “So, what’s our next step?”
Devon reached out to swipe a fast-food napkin from the glove box, pressing it into her hand while eagle-eyeing the road both in front of them and behind. “Thankfully, we have enough gas that we won’t need to stop for another two hundred miles, maybe more. We’re going to have to drive in shifts, but we should be able to make decent time through South Dakota and into Iowa.”
“You want me to help?” Kylie’s jaw fell open.
“I want to keep you safe,” Devon corrected. “But the best way to do that is to work as a team, so yeah.” He grabbed her fingers, and Kylie felt the squeeze all the way from her breastbone to her boots.
“I want you to help.”
8
Devon’s eyes burned like they’d been dipped in battery acid and set out in the sun to dry, but he blinked twice, ignoring the sensation. Levering his foot a little harder over the gas pedal, he stared through the windshield, watching the irony of a gorgeous sunrise over the horizon.
Fagan was going down. The uglier, the better.
Devon was going to make sure of it.
“Looks like we should make it to Iowa City in about fifteen minutes,” Kylie said, her slender brows tucking into a V as she looked at the GPS. “By then maybe we’ll have heard something from Kellan.”
“He was pretty set on getting out here today. I’m sure he’s working something out with that detective contact of his to get you into protective custody ASAP.”
Translation: Kellan had probably been in the detective’s face 24/7 ever since Devon had dropped the news that they’d been shot at leaving Wyoming yesterday afternoon. It had taken all of Devon’s negotiation skills to convince the guy not to just jump on a plane all yippy-ki-yay and start blasting his way through the Midwest. While the idea of ending Fagan had a metric ton of merit, stepping strategically was important, now more than ever.
Devon had sworn to keep Kylie safe, and come hellfire or brimstone, he was going to be a man of his word.
The shrill ring of his cell phone cut through the quiet in the Challenger, and speak of the sinner. “Walker. Tell me you have a plan.”
“I do,” Kellan said, pausing only long enough for Devon to put him on speaker so Kylie could be part of the convo before continuing. “How far are you from Chicago?”
“Um.” Kylie’s fingers flew over the backlit screen of the GPS. “About two hundred miles, give or take.”
Kellan let out a relieved exhale. “The RPD arranged for me to fly under an alias, so Detective Moreno and I are getting on a plane in three hours. She knows a DEA agent at the field office in Chicago, and she says the guy and his unit are good police. They can bring Kylie into protective custody and keep her safe while they hunt Fagan down.”
Whoa. Talk about bringing in the big guns. Literally and figuratively. “Copy that.” Devon paused, considering taking Kellan off speaker for the next part, but screw it. Kylie was tough enough to handle the truth, and anyway, she deserved full disclosure. “How do you want to work this? Because I’ll be honest. Your detective might trust this DEA guy, but the only person I trust in this scenario is you.”
