Page 14 of Tempting Fate

My sweaty fingers are next to useless as I struggle to hit the ignition button with enough force to start the engine. The accelerator feels like a brick beneath my foot when I reverse out of my parking spot. I offer one of the other graduate lawyers a small wave when I pass her on my way toward the exit. My hand hangs for an extra heartbeat when I see how her eyes widen when my usual Harley escort doesn’t follow behind me. Most everyone in the firm is connected to the Shamrocks in some way, so they’re aware of the restrictions my overprotective family has in place.

“You and me both,” I mutter when she doesn’t wave back. “You and me both.”

Frown creasing her forehead, she turns on her heel to head back to the elevators that lead to our offices. No doubt she’s going to alert Gabriel to my unorthodox departure, so he can double-check that I’m not doing something stupid.

Every limb is heavy, like I’m trapped in mental quicksand, as a nagging twinge of intuition orders me to get home as soon as I can. It’s been drummed into my head in the post-Alex years to always trust my gut—especially by Slash, who’s a firm believer in the power of instinct—so I use inertia to put the pedal to the metal. Avoiding my usual route home, I speed through the back streets, crisscrossing the city thoroughfare until I reach the on-ramp to the freeway. My gaze flits between the road in front of me and my rear-view mirror. I’m half-deafened by the whooshing of my heart as it races in my ears. Over and over, I scan my surroundings to make sure I don’t have a tail. With my phone clutched in one hand, Zeke’s number on the screen, my thumb hovering over the call icon, I weave in and out of the traffic.

Despite knowing that it’s likely useless, I try to ring Zeke again as I pull into our driveway.

This time the call connects, but only long enough to send me to his message bank.

“It’s me,” I whisper when his terse greeting ends. Clearing my throat, I try to sound calm as I tell him, “I’m home. I, ah, I love you.”

A swipe of my thumb ends the call before I can confess that I want him to come home as soon as possible. My body is a ball of jangling nerves, my legs jelly-like as I slide out of my vehicle. Wedging my keys between my fingers, I hurry toward the front door with my bag secured across the front of my body. When I reach the bottom of the front steps, I realise I haven’t locked my SUV, so I spin around to point the fob at the vehicle instead of backtracking to press the button on the inside of the handle.

As the lights flash, a white work van pulls across my driveway.

“Hey, miss, are you ready for us?” The big man in the passenger seat yells at me, leaning out the window.

“What do you mean?” I shout back at him.

“We’re here for the job you called about.”

Since my house is on a corner block, people sometimes confuse my address with the house on the adjacent street. Although alarms clang in my head, I swallow down my apprehension and walk toward the van. My thin heels click on our concrete driveway. Another sliver of foreboding runs through my mind, this time manifesting as an icy shiver that slices through my body. I carefully edge my right hand into my purse and wrap my fingers around the butt of my handgun.

The handgun I’ve had to use on someone only once before.

Stopping a few metres from the van, I widen my stance, cocking a hip as well, to tell the man, “I didn’t book a plumber. You must have me confused with the Thompsons. Their house backs up to my yard.”

As I wait for him to leaf through the paperwork on his lap, the thumb of my left hand unconsciously plays with my engagement ring. It’s a nervous habit I’ve developed since Zeke slid the ring on my finger a few years ago. The dainty circle of gold with its diamonds is a small symbol of the connection I share with the man who owns my heart, but the comfort it offers is larger than life.

The man in the driver’s seat speaks again, lower than before. I can’t hear him properly. When he gestures toward a piece of paper in his hand and beckons me to look at it, I freeze. My head spins. I bite my bottom lip to ground myself, scanning my surroundings, before I try to peer through the tinted windows of the van. The driver stares straight ahead, annoyance emanating from him as I waste their time.

I’ve trained in self-defence for years now, I can evade two men.

Giving myself a mental shake for being so suspicious over what is no doubt an honest mistake, I pull my hand from my handbag and walk to the passenger window.

“I didn’t book a plumber.”

“We know, angel,” the driver says with a sneer.

My heart lurches at his tone, chills running down my spine when he turns to face me. A sinister smirk invades his features as I quickly recognise him. I shriek. Turn to run. My handbag slips off my shoulder in the rush and the heel of my stiletto catches on the cement join. Off-balance, fight or flight engaged, I pause to choose between bending down to retrieve my gun or sprinting to the locked front door… and that’s when the side door of the van slides open.

An additional two men leap out of the back.

“Help!” Screaming to gain my neighbours attention, I dart to the side so I can evade the men. “Fire!”

Dressed in black with balaclavas covering their faces, the men each latch onto one of my arms, and drag me, kicking and shouting, toward the van. My teeth rattle when the top of my head hits the door jamb. I graze my knee on the step. One of them shoves me forward and the other one seizes hold of my knees to heft me the rest of the way inside the vehicle.

As the bigger of the two men pins me to the floor, I hear my phone ringing. The guitar solo at the start of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses fills the air. I screw my eyes shut as the need to cry ambushes me.

It’s Zeke’s ringtone.

He’s calling me back.

But he’s too late.

As I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, the van drives off at high speed. Wheels squealing. We lurch from side to side. Wild with rage and energised by fear, I fight for my freedom as hard as I can within the cramped confines of the vehicle. I use my heels to kick one of my attackers in the face. His balaclava rips at the cheekbone, his nose pours blood. I aim for his chin, determined to turn the odds in my favour by knocking him out, but before I can strike him a second time, I feel a sharp pinch in my arm.

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