“Ah! You bitch.” The force of the contact made him stumble back, and Kylie didn’t wait to take advantage of his loosened grip. She spun around with every intention to run. But Xavier was already regrouping, his massive body coiling tighter as he hunched forward at the waist to catch the blood running down his face, and she didn’t think.
Just moved.
Her foot came off the floor, connecting with Xavier’s chin in a sickening crunch. His torso whipped back, hanging upright for just a split second before he fell into a heavy heap on the concrete in front of her.
Go. Go go go go go!
The command pumped through Kylie’s brain, slamming against her throat with every heartbeat as she ran up the stairs two at a time. She barreled through the kitchen and into the front of the house, slowing from warp speed only long enough to make a hasty grab for the purse she’d left on top of the bar. Clutching the black leather to her chest, Kylie flung herself through The Corner Tavern’s front door, not stopping until she reached the driver’s side of her Mustang.
“Oh, come on.” She cursed, fumbling through the depths of her bag while keeping her eyes locked on the entrance to the bar. Relief sailed through her when finally, finally, her fingers closed over her key fob, her tires spitting gravel a mere ten seconds later as she tore out of the parking lot at conservatively ninety-five miles an hour.
“Okay. Okay. You’re tough. You got away. You’re okay. It’s okay,” Kylie babbled, forcing herself to breathe even though each inhale was thoroughly soaked in fear.
She had to call the cops. Better yet, she had to go to the police station herself. Yeah, she’d witnessed a horrific murder—don’t think about it, don’t think about it—but if she was in the police station, surrounded by cameras and cops, she’d be safe.
Kylie dumped the contents of her purse on the passenger seat, and for Chrissake, how hard was it to find one little cell phone? Mashing her foot even harder over the accelerator, she snatched up her iPhone, tapping the screen to life with a shaky jolt of her thumb.
…it wouldn’t matter if you did. I’ve got half the force in my back pocket anyway…I buy Feds like Christmas presents…
Oh. God. Xavier might’ve just been talking shit. After all, he didn’t strike Kylie as a trustworthy kind of guy. Then again, he did strike her as a dangerous-as-hell kind of guy, who dealt drugs and shot people in the face and threatened to rape and murder innocent bartenders.
Tempted as she was to call in everyone right down to the National Guard, one wrong step could land her in the middle of God’s country with a murderer who was likely furious at having been kicked in the teeth and left bleeding all over his own crime scene.
Getting away a second time wouldn’t be an option. She had to make sure Xavier didn’t find her. As much as she hated admitting that she was in over her head, the stakes were too high for her not to face the hard-nosed reality staring her in the face.
She had to find someone to help her. Someone she knew. Someone she trusted with her life.
Kylie scrolled through her contacts, the white noise of her own heartbeat pressing against her ears as she pushed the send icon below the only number she knew by heart.
“Please…please…please answer…”
“It’s four o’clock in the morning here on the East Coast. This had better be a doozy.”
She fought the urge to laugh, along with the even stronger urge to cry. “Kellan? It’s me. I’m, uh—I’m in a little trouble. How fast can you get to Wyoming?”
2
Devon Randolph rolled over in the darkness, cursing up a blue streak at his cell phone. More accurately, he was cursing whoever was on the other end of his cell phone, making the fucking thing ring loud enough and long enough to yank him out of the first REM sleep he’d managed to snag in weeks.
There had better be grave goddamn danger attached to this call, otherwise he was going to kick someone’s ass halfway to China.
“Randolph,” he grated, his mind and body both on full alert by the time he’d finished the exhale. Zero-two-thirty. SIG Sauer P229 under his pillow. Graphite-bladed KA-BAR on the night stand. Empty motel room, empty bed.
Business as usual.
“Hey, Dev. It’s Walker. Sorry to wake you, but I’ve got a situation on my hands, and I need your help.”
Devon read the seriousness between the lines of his fellow Ranger’s words, digesting them in a blink. Kellan Walker was a friend, a brother. If the guy needed backup, Devon was in, no questions asked.
“You straight at the fire house?” he asked. Kellan had channeled his adrenaline into fighting fires after they’d gotten out of the Army three years ago. Funny, really, that Devon put out fires, too—just that the heat he dealt with while freelancing private security jobs was a lot more figurative than literal.
“Yeah. This is actually a family thing. Not about me. Well, not directly, anyway.”
Devon took in the intel, keeping his surprise to himself. “Copy that. What’s going on?”
“Please tell me you’re still out there in the middle of nowhere.” Kellan’s voice stretched thin, barely covering the words.
“I’m crashing in Wyoming, not outer Mongolia,” Devon said for the sake of clarity. After all, he and Kellan had done no less than a dozen ops in places more remote than Jackson, Wyoming, and Devon couldn’t help it that his last client—make that, his very rich last client—owned a 4,000-acre cattle farm here. The client’s daughter had married the son of the second-most famous country-pop singer on Billboard’s Top 100 last weekend, and Devon had run the security for the event. The paparazzi had been a pain in the ass, keeping him running until after the cake had been cut, so he’d decided to stick around Wyoming for a few days to recover. There were worse corners of the world to kill time between jobs, and he and Kellan had been to most of them. “But, if that’s what you mean, then yeah, I’m still in the zip code. Figured I’d take a few days to recharge before heading back to the city.”
