Page 67 of Veil of Lies

I was kinda sad to see the severity of the damage when Harley hauled me out of the passenger seat. The front end of his pretty car was concertinaed and not salvageable.

Smoke filtered out from the hood, curling up into the humid air. I hoped we weren’t about to get barbecued in a fireball. That kind of thing happened in the movies. The threat of an explosion was obviously on Harley’s mind, too.

He pulled me away from the remains of the car and up the bank, just inside the trees edging the road.

“What now?” I asked, belatedly remembering why we were in this mess. Whoever ran us off the road might still be around.

“We wait. The car would have transmitted an SOS alert when we crashed. Help should be here shortly.”

“What about the SUV?”

“It’s long gone,” he ground out. “The fucker knew exactly what he was doing. I just wish I knew why. No way was that a journalist.”

I didn’t know what to think. Why on earth would anyone deliberately try to run us off the road? It made no sense.

Chapter 54

Quinn

The door to our apartment sprang open and Harley walked in with a grim expression on his face. I clocked the way he held Stella tightly, possessively, and bristled. We may have had a conversation about sharing a while back, but I couldn’t help but feel jealous he had a relationship with her while I was still firmly in the friend-zone.

Then I saw the dried blood on his forehead.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Some asshole ran my car off the road a few miles from college.” I watched as he headed over to the sofa and collapsed, pulling Stella onto his lap. She said nothing. She seemed distant, removed from the situation. Maybe it was shock. I wasn’t sure. In truth, I didn’t know her well enough to judge her reaction to trauma.

“Are you both OK?” I asked with concern, resting my ass against the counter and ignoring the food prep I’d been engaged in before they got back.

“Yeah, mostly.” Harley tugged Stella closer and stroked her hair like she was a cat. “Can’t say the same about my fucking car.” He scowled. “It’s going to be off the road for a while.”

“Why would someone run you off the road?” It made no sense. Harley had pissed off a lot of people, girls mostly, but not enough for anyone to want him dead.

“It was me they were targeting.” Stella looked up. Her normally golden skin was ashen, her eyes dull. Whatever this was had clearly shaken her.

“But why? Your dad’s in prison. Sure, a lot of people hate him, but it’s not your fault he did what he did.”

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You should read some of the comments on news articles after he was arrested. Trust me, a lot of people out there would be very happy if I dropped dead. They’d see it as a fitting punishment for my dad ruining their lives.”

“Fuck, that’s really sick.” I wish what she said was shocking, but it wasn’t. I’d followed the news after the story broke, and then even more so after Brax’s father killed himself over it. Stella was right. A lot of people hated her family. Whether they wanted her dead was debatable, but I understood where she was coming from.

“Are the police looking into it?” I asked Harley. He nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s wait to see what they find before we go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole.”

“I should go back to my dorm room,” Stella said.

“Why?” Harley and I both spoke at once.

“Because I don’t want to put you guys in danger. Hanging around with me puts a target on your backs.”

“Pfft. We can handle ourselves,” Harley huffed. “I was caught out today. Next time I won’t be.”

“And what happens if next time, whoever it is tries a bit harder and you end up fucking dead?” Stella cried. “No, this ends now. I’m better off on my own.” She jumped up before Harley could stop her.

“Stella—” I tried to say, but she paid me no attention.

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