“Who were they?” Simon asked.
“Don’t know,” Jacob said. He ducked his chin to wipe sweat and blood off his face onto his shoulder. When Simon made a frustrated sound, Jacob shook his head. “I mean it. I’ve no fucking idea, Simon. This was a clean job.”
“Clean,” Simon said flatly. They reached the end of the road, and he paused to check the established landscape for any changes. The homeless man shuffled across the road, Mylar dangling around him like a cloak—too far away to pose an immediate threat if he wasn’t what he looked like. “Not what I’d call it.”
Jacob hesitated and leaned his weight back on his heels. “Simon. Look, I told you that I never meant—”
“And I don’t care,” Simon lied flatly and shoved Jacob into the road ahead of him. “If I didn’t need answers, I’d leave you to get your own ass out of whatever mess you’ve got yourself into.”
Arm tucked protectively over his ribs, Jacob hobbled toward the car. “Ijustsaid this wasn’t me.”
Simon thumbed the car fob, making the lights flutter, and reached past Jacob to get the door open.
“Get in.”
As Jacob gingerly lowered himself into the car, Simon got a better look at him. He had a cut on his forehead and a puffy lip that roughed up the otherwise almost-pretty lines of his lean face. The hand pressed over his at-least-cracked ribs was scraped and raw, the skin split and bruised where someone had stamped on it. It could have been worse. Simon hadseenworse, but he still had to wrestle the urge to go back after Ginger and Nondescript.
He slammed the door shut and loped around the car. Jacob was still getting the seat belt on as Simon got in, and struggled with working it one-handed.
“Can we get out of here?” Jacob asked as he shifted in the seat and looked out the window. His tongue swiped over the tender bruise of his lower lip, and he grimaced. “I need a doctor and a drink. Not necessarily in that order.”
“You need a lawyer.”
“I’ve got one.”
Simon snorted as he pulled away from the curb. “Call her, then.”
“No phone.”
“My point.”
The black car screeched around the corner, rear end fishtailing on the tarmac as it raced toward them. It clipped the homeless man and sent him flying. The Mylar blanket slipped off his shoulders and soared away on the wind.
“Son of a bitch,” Simon snapped. He grabbed the back of Jacob’s head, shoved him down against his yelp of protest, and tucked himself over him. The car jolted as bullets hit it, and glass sprayed over Simon as they shot out the windows.
As soon as the gunfire stopped, Simon unfolded himself. The engine was still running, and he gunned it and peeled off down the road. Jacob got his elbow on the passenger-side window and pulled himself up. He hissed a groan between his teeth as he uncreased his abused ribs. Then he brushed glass out of his hair with a shaking hand and stared out through the hole where the window used to be.
“Wait,” he said suddenly. “The old guy—they hit him. We have to call the cops or an ambulance or something.”
Simon swallowed, tasted adrenaline, and tossed Jacob his phone. He hadn’t even thought about the old man. His brain was still locked into violence and mission parameters.
“Hit 911. We were just passing—”
Jacob fumbled with the phone and snorted. “I think we can both agree, I know how to lie,” he said. The operator opened the line, and the pain left Jacob’s voice as he said, “Hello? I think something might have happened….”
Chapter Five
A BLOODYfacecloth dropped onto the floor. Mint-green mouthwash and blood hit the scraped porcelain of the sink and swirled down the drain as Jacob flipped the tap on. He wiped his hand over his lips, looked up at his reflection in the mirror, and grimaced at the more-or-less okay face that stared back at him. A zombie-green bruise was spreading down from his temple, and his lower lip was scabbed and puffy, but he’d seen his sister with worse after her “kickboxing for kuties” classes.
It wasn’t a face that was going to earn him a free pass. Although he suspected he could look like Keifer Sutherland on hour twenty-three and it wouldn’t get him a sympathetic hearing.
He took another swig of mouthwash. The inside of his mouth stung as the alcohol hit it, but he swilled it around his teeth and spit it down the drain. Time to face the music—or fake a medical emergency. He half-seriously weighed that up in his head as he grabbed a towel, wiped his face, and left the bathroom.
It was a Comfort Inn. It looked like every other Comfort Inn he’d ever stayed in, from the shiny bedspread to the butt-scarred computer desk. Simon’s long, lean, expensively dressed body looked out of place slouched against the wall, arms crossed, and attention on the darkness outside.
Hot, but out of place. It seemed like a camera should flash at any minute and capture the lithe lean of his body and clean-cut, reserved beauty of his face for the pages of a high-end magazine. Untouchable.
Jacob swallowed the ridiculous urge to wrap himself around all that muscle and bone, to prove he could touch him. Even if he hadn’t burned that bridge—and, let’s be honest, he had blown that bridge up, set fire to the bits, and pissed on the ashes—it wasn’t the sort of thing Jacob did. He didn’tneedpeople. His sister said he was like a cat—fun to pet, made all the right noises, but fended for himself just to make the point he didn’t need you.
