“Talking has always beenherstrong suit, not yours, Darius,” Jon said. “You’d just get everyone killed with that mouth of yours. So I’d leave the snark to the professionals instead.” He applied more pressure into the gun’s barrel. “Speaking of professionals, I think it’s time to leave before the colleagues I’m sure Evie has called in come running. I’d hate for you to lose the chance to save that lovely family I have all tied up, simply because the response time of Seven Roads’s finest is actually impressive. Let’s go.”
Darius glanced at the nightstand.
Eve’s phone was gone.
Relief pure and true moved through his chest.
He let Jon lead him outside to a black truck, its front partially damaged and a side mirror missing.
The relief that Eve had gotten away disappeared the second Jon cussed low.
“Looks like I underestimated Lana after all,” he said. “I should have killed her first.”
Darius caught his eye, his brow arching high.
Jon’s mood switched gears again.
He laughed and looked back at the house.
“Hate to break it to you, Darius, but maybe little Evie didn’t get away after all.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lana was fast. Even with an arm in a sling, an obvious head injury and a limp, she had her and Eve in a car and out to the steel mill’s back entrance within what felt like the blink of an eye.
“This is where your friend shot us last time,” Eve had to point out as they started walking to the residence halls. Caution tape could be seen across the porch of the men’s building. Lana directed them toward the women’s building on the other side.
“He wasn’t supposed to shoot you,” she said nonchalantly. “And he wasn’t my friend.”
Eve knew she shouldn’t have followed Lana. She shouldn’t have gotten into the car with her. She shouldn’t have willingly come to a place no one would think to look for her. Yet, when Lana pushed open the front door and disappeared inside, Eve easily followed in step.
Like something had shifted between Eve and Darius, she could tell something had shifted behind the scenes for the criminals.
And whatever that was, it had pissed off Lana and created her own shift.
Though, Eve wasn’t sure why the woman had come to her.
She decided asking directly was the best way to deal with the woman who had wanted to kill her less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Why are you helping me? Helping Darius and Winnie and Price?”
Lana flipped on the lights. The inside of the women’s residence hall wasn’t as derelict as the men’s had been. Still, Eve took care to keep closer to the wall and avoid the middle of the room until they were at a bunk bed with a mattress still intact. There was a laptop on its top, connected to a phone.
Lana sat heavily. Blood ran into her eye, and she cussed as she tried to wipe it out with her hand. The marker on her palm with her plea to Eve was a sharp contrast to the red.
“Because men are idiots,” Lana ground out. “And instead of listening to the only smart one of them, they just keep calling in more men to be idiots.” She blinked several times, her eye red from the irritation. Eve could now clearly see that her clothes were also torn and dirtied. She had definitely been throughsomethingsince her stay at the hospital.
Eve had so many questions she wasn’t sure which one to ask first. She decided to start with the odd choice of location.
“Why are we here, then? Why not just run if you’re breaking your contract?”
Lana snorted.
“Scott Keys might be an idiot, but he’s one with deep pockets and a right-hand who can control the rest of them just by snapping. I could disappear if I wanted, but there’s someone I care about around here, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life running in the opposite direction.”
Eve’s adrenaline spiked for the second time that day.
“So Scott reallyisbehind these attacks.”
