"Stop fighting me!" he roars.
Suddenly, the back door creaks. Austin’s head snaps up. He shoves me behind him and draws a knife. Dress shoes click-clack on the concrete.
"Hello?" a smooth voice calls out. "I'm looking for a Ms. Wade. We saw her rental car in the alley. I'm with the Costa Group."
Austin steps out. "She's not here. But I am."
I hear a scuffle. I run to the doorway. Austin has a man in a gray suit pinned against a shelf. Two other men stand by the exit, hands inside their jackets.
"You followed my woman," Austin snarls. "The Wade Estate is closed. And if I see any of you near her again, I won't use my hands."
He throws the man toward his friends. The man in the suit smiles at me—an assessing, terrifying smile—before they disappear into the alley.
Austin turns to face me. "You," he growls. "Car. Now."
He scoops me up over his shoulder. He dumps me into the passenger seat of his truck and peels out.
"Home," he says, his grip straining the wheel. "And this time, I'm nailing the windows shut if I have to."
We pull up to the estate. Austin sits there, as still as stone. "You scared the shit out of me," Austin growls, his voice a jagged edge of unspent terror as he finally looks at me.
"I thought... I thought you played me," I admit.
"I don't play, Courtney. Not with you." He glances sideways at me. "You’re staying."
"I'm staying," I whisper.
"Good. Because I'm not done with you."
8
AUSTIN
The silence in the valley is like the aftermath of a gunshot—ringing and permeating the air. My grip strangles the leather of the steering wheel, fighting the urge to whip the truck around, roar back into town, and put a bullet in James’s head. And maybe a few more into the suits who dared to step into my shop and look at her.
Courtney sits silent in the passenger seat. She stares out the window, hands fidgeting in her lap. Her skin is the color of old paper, the adrenaline crash hitting her hard, but I can’t comfort her yet. Not when the rage boils my blood, thick and toxic.
She walked right into the lion’s den. Because she didn’t trust me. Because she thought I played her for a patch of dirt.
It’s stifling—this quiet. I finally let go of the steering wheel.
"Get inside," I growl.
She fumbles with the door handle, her movements clumsy. "Austin, I?—"
"Not out here." My voice scrapes my throat. "Inside. Now."
I vault out of the truck before she can argue, marching around to her side. I yank the door open and grip her upper arm. My fingers dig in, not to hurt, but to anchor. To make sure she’s real. To make sure she’s here, in my territory, and not being sized up by Dominic Costa’s goons on Main Street.
I hustle her up the porch steps, eyes scanning the tree line. The shadows of the pines stretch longer, deeper. The threat isn’t theoretical anymore. It walked into my shop wearing an Italian suit.
I shove the front door open and push her into the foyer, kicking it shut behind us and throwing the heavy deadbolt into place. I engage the chain. Then I spin around, bracing my hands on my hips, chest heaving.
"Are you insane?" The words explode out of me, bouncing off the peeling wallpaper. "Do you have any idea what you just did?"
Courtney spins to face me. She doesn’t back down. Her pupils swallow the blue of her eyes, but that stubborn streak—the one I’ve loved since we were twelve—flares up.
"I went to get answers!" she shouts, voice cracking. "Because you wouldn’t give them to me! James told me everything, Austin. He told me the club has been trying to buy this land for five years."
