Page 4 of Tell Me

Or after someone.

A line of cars raced through the gates into the parking lot, smoke coming up off tires that were turning too quickly, and I ducked automatically. Shit, shit, shit. I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, but my initial assessment was right.

They were either running from someone or after something, and given my last name and the fact that I’d just shown up in New Orleans for the first time in ten years, I didn’t have to think twice to know that they were probably here for me.

This wasn’t part of my plan.

I slid quickly onto the bike, pressed the ignition, and ducked down, getting as close to the handlebars as I could and wishing like hell I’d worn a bulletproof vest. Whoever that was might not be shooting at me—yet—but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to, and those vests made it a whole lot less dangerous to crash, if that was what this came to. I slammed my hand down on the gas of the bike, revved it to get a feel for it, and then let off the clutch. The back tire squealed against the asphalt, making one hell of a racket, then finally found purchase and bit down, sending me skidding out of the parking space and into the alley behind the rental building.

I folded even lower and tried to get the measure of the machine underneath me, taking the bike around a quick bend and then into a straightaway and hitting the gas again. Right, this baby was extremely responsive. And very fast.

Good.

I could hear the cars coming up behind me already—they must have seen me take off—and didn’t exactly want to run into them. They were definitely following me, and I was here alone. I racked my brain for my internal map of New Orleans, trying desperately to get past the map of New York I normally kept in my mental navigation system. I didn’t need Brooklyn or Midtown right now; I needed New Orleans. I needed the Esplanade district and the quickest way from here to there. I ground out a curse when the map was slow to load, but then finally remembered.

Esplanade wasn’t where most of the rich families lived in New Orleans. It wasn’t trendy unless you were a tourist. But it had two distinct benefits: First, the cops never went there looking for crime families. Second, it was very close to the airport.

It would only take me ten minutes to get to where I needed to go.

I hit the gas, sped around a turn, and looked for the onramp to 10 East. The streets would have given me better cover, but the highway was a whole lot faster, and right now I’d take speed over hiding. The ramp up to the 10 appeared moments later and I hit it going about 60, swerving around traffic as I went and coming far too close to clipping too many cars.

Once I hit the straightaway, though, I congratulated myself on my choices. Traffic wasn’t bad here, courtesy of it being nearly dark out, so I wasn’t going to have places to hide. But I’d be able to get out of here quickly.

Unfortunately, the guys in the cars chasing me were going to do the same thing.

The sound of spinning tires and roaring engines got louder behind me and I cursed. In my need for a quick route I hadn’t considered the fact that the lack of traffic would make it easier for anyone following me. If cars had been stopped in a jam, the guys behind me would have had to stop as well, while I sped between everyone else. As it was, I was a sitting duck.

Only they weren’t shooting.

Which seemed odd.

I wondered fleetingly who they were and why they were following me. Whether they knew who I was and what they wanted. And then I realized I didn’t have time to wonder about those things. They were definitely following me and therefore trouble, and nothing beyond that really mattered.

I swerved back and forth, avoiding the few cars on the road and trying to put more distance between me and my pursuers, and then saw the exit I needed. A quick jerk to the right and I was flying down it, and now I finally did find traffic. Cars were stacked up down here, waiting for the light to turn green.

Perfect.

I flew past them all, revved the engine again, and shot through the intersection, narrowly avoiding the cross traffic as I went. Leaning over the handlebars, I sped for the next street. Esplanade went both right and left from here, but I only needed one direction. A quick right, then another at the first street, and I found myself in front of the gates I’d been aiming for.

I jumped off the bike, threw them open, and then remounted it and hauled ass up the driveway toward a mansion I hadn’t seen in ten years and never thought I’d be coming back to.

And those fucking cars came skidding in right after me.

4

BROOKS

I jumped from the bike while it was still moving and sent it skidding across the white concrete of the driveway, sparks flying from the metal of the thing as it went.

Part of me hated that I’d just wrecked such a beautiful bike.

Another part loved that it was leaving paint and burn marks all over the once-beautiful driveway.

The third and most important part of my brain was screaming at me to get the fuck through the front doors of the mansion before the men following me caught up, though, and I left the bike to its fate and raced for the archway into the house. This part of the mansion had always been too big and pretentious for my taste, but I hit the doors with both hands now, throwing them open as dramatically as possible. They bounced off the walls in the entryway with a bang, and if anyone had managed to miss the car chase up the driveway, they certainly heard my entry.

Not that it would have been hard.

Because the head Landry was standing on the landing right over the foyer, his hands on the railing and his gaze on the doors. Those dark, calculating eyes flicked from me to the doors I’d just burst through, and then to the men I could hear running up behind me. A grin ticked his lips upward and by the time his gaze came back to me, running up and down my body like he didn’t approve of anything he saw, he was smirking.

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