Page 76 of Freedom’s Inferno

“Working on it.”

We hit a curve at seventy. The back end of the car swung out, the world tilting sideways. I grabbed the door handle with both hands, thinking it would be just our luck to die in a fiery wreck before Costa could even pull the trigger.

He steered into it, teeth bared in concentration, muscles tense through his arms. The tires caught. The Lexus righted.

“Charlie, there’s a turn ahead!” I did everything I could to swallow down the scream that threatened to tear from my throat.

“I see it.”

He cut the wheel hard left, sending us down a dirt access road between two warehouses. Mud and gravel exploded behind us in a plume. The truck overshot the turn, tires shrieking as it tried to reverse back.

Charlie didn’t stop. He kept going, eyes darting between mirrors, breath sharp and controlled. “Come on. Come on…”

We burst through a break in the fence at the back of the property, the metal groaning as it bent out of the way. The Lexus jolted onto another narrow road, back on asphalt now, the pursuit fading behind us.

“Do you see him?” I asked.

He checked the mirror once. Twice. “No. He’s gone.”

Neither of us exhaled right away.

Charlie slowed, pulling into a deserted parking lot behind an old car wash. The engine idled as he leaned back against the seat, his breath rough and uneven.

My own breathing was shallow and shaking, deafened by the roar of my pulse in my ears.

“Goddamn it!” Charlie slammed his hand against the steering wheel, sharp enough to make me flinch. He gripped it tight, knuckles white.

“Charlie‒”

He shook his head. “No. We can’t go back to your house. If they’re tracking us, this is a setup waiting to happen.”

The anger in his voice was grief in disguise. I knew that. The letter, his mother, the past—all of it caught up to him, spilling out sideways.

“Then we don’t go there,” I said.

“Where the hell else do we go, Lana?”

I hesitated, then said, “The sober house.”

He turned to me, disbelief and something darker flashing across his face. “No.”

“They won’t expect us to go there. It buys us time.”

“It’s not a safehouse, it’s a goddamn rehab center.”

“Yes, and your mother’s last address,” I said, meeting his gaze. “We’re already running. What’s one more stop? You need to see it, Charlie. You know you do. ”

His jaw worked, muscles flexing. “Why can’t you just let it go?”

“Because you can’t,” I said. “And you shouldn’t.”

He looked away, out through the windshield. The sky grew darker now, clouds pulling low and heavy. The rain found its fury, striking the roof in waves that echoed through the car like static.

A muscle ticked in Charlie’s temple, and he worried his lower lip.

“I don’t know if I can do it, Lana.” His voice came out low and frayed. The broken sound of it squeezed something in my chest.

I turned toward him. “You won’t be alone.”