“Why didn’t we just go out with everyone else?” he asked in a whisper. “We could’ve snuck out amongst the chaos.”
“Hindsight is a beaut, kitten,” I said, turning to him. “You have Mr. Thimble, right?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
I had a million different ideas going through my mind. We could jack a car and go, or we could find ours. Jacking acar would be extra effort, but would potentially get us out faster. “Good. You remember where we parked?”
“No. But maybe we should just stay low and wait for people.”
That would’ve been a great thing, if we hadn’t already come out into the parking lot. Right now, the choices were simple, and ideally, we’d take our own car—that’s where all my smoked meats were, and a couple of thousand dollars.
The crunch under gravel came from directly up ahead. A torch shone on us, crouching against the side of a car. I leapt from my position, and almost like the beast of all the aggression I’d seen tonight at the game, I punched the man’s face in, pummeling him and his torch into the ground. The torch flailed around, signaling for the others to come to him.
With everyone racing toward us, I spotted out car up ahead. I grabbed Ezra with my bloody fists and raced to the car. We were there in seconds, but we couldn’t afford to stop and look at my fists or how much blood I’d got on me. We had to leave. Now!
16. EZRA
I didn’t know where we were going, only that we were leaving, and leaving fast. I eventually fell asleep in the passenger seat and woke up to Jacques talking to himself—or as I realized, speaking to the person in his ear. They were having a bit of a heated conversation from the sounds of it. It had only been around two hours since we’d left after the parking lot brawl.
“So then how the fuck did they find us?” he asked. It was the loudest he’d raised his voice the entire time we’d been in the car and it almost startled me. “Sorry, kitten.” He rubbed my shoulder. “I’m obviously not talking to you.”
“What’s going on?” I grumbled. The road was completely dark, surrounded by tall trees on either side. The occasional reflection from the road illuminated our path. “Where are we going?”
“I can’t say,” he told me. “Not while I’m—” He paused, almost like he was being shouted at through the earpiece. I really wanted to know what they were talking about, but the last time my curiosity was put to use, I’d caught myself between the Whistleblower Act and a hard place—a.k.a. Jacques, a.k.a. Reaper. “I’ll let you know in minute, kitten.”
Rubbing my eyes, I stared out of the window and tried to reflect on what had happened. Those people had come for me, they were trying to get me, to take me away, probably have me hauled inside some dark room, interrogated, and maybe even forced to take the blame. It was a living nightmare at times, the idea that billionaires were above the law, the idea that they could make up their own laws, and maybe even fabricate shit that wasn’t there, and more specifically that it was my fault all those people died in those trials.
Jacques reassured me as I grew restless in the passenger seat, ultimately removing his earpiece and telling me he didn’t know who was responsible, and neither did his contact. We knew the FBI had gotten the tap on my legal team, but so many others could’ve followed that same tap and the same information they had.
“We’re going into deep hiding,” he told me. “There’s going to be a manhunt for the two of us. Mostly me. They’re spinning it—”
I didn’t know if I wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say. I didn’t want to know what they were spinning. “Will we be safe?”
“The safest,” he said. “Because we’ll be together.”
***
Arriving in the dead of night, we were in Boston. The air was cold and the sky completely clear. We were in a quiet, clean alley, gated off from the main road, with two large dumpsters against the wall, completely empty. It felt too clean. I walked as Jacques talked to someone on the phone, occupied by seeing the steam from my breath, opening my mouth wide and exhaling slowly to make the biggestcloud. I tried to walk closer but Jacques walked further away from me. I knew it must’ve been an important conversation, but I just wanted to cuddle—or get somewhere warm.
He hung up the phone and chased me down against the car. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled his cold mouth against my neck. “Sorry for that, baby,” he said. “When I said we were going underground, I might’ve meant that a little literally.”
“Underground?” I asked, looking around. “But you don’t have—” My brows creased as I tried to think about where exactlythis could’ve been. I knew we were in Boston, and the only place he had here was an apartment with a loft. And this definitely wasn’t a loft.
A car pulled up outside the fence moments later. The large headlights shone on us. A tall man climbed out of the car.
“I had to call in a favor,” he said, keeping me close with an arm around my shoulder.
The headlights cut off and the man opened the fence and shimmied through an opening. He laughed. “I didn’t think I’d see you asking me for a favor,” he said.
“Who is it?” I asked quietly, my mouth clenched from the cold.
“Looks like you’re both going to be in for a ride,” he laughed.
“Santo,” Jacques said. “I never wanted to call in the favor, but here I am. And tomorrow, you’ll know why.”
Santo walked up to us, his eyes scanning me. They looked like they were breaking me down bit by bit. “I know,” he said. “I’ve got sources, Reaper. And I owe you one. Truly.”
I looked to Jacques, wanting an immediate answer to why, but I knew this wasn’t just some friend. This man was dangerous. “Why?” I asked. It just came out, and once I’d asked it, the two of them looked at each other, then their warm gazes fell upon me.
