Page 145 of Hell and High Water

“Can I shoot her?” Evan growls.

“Come on, no guesses? Fine. It was Oliver Devonde.”

We all process the information in silence.

Hellena is the first to speak. “It makes sense. And it answers one question we’ve all had. Devonde is not one of the Sinful. He’s just one of their pawns.”

“At least he was.”

“That doesn’t explain why Damon hired you to kill him.”

“It sure doesn’t. You’ll have to ask him someday yourself.”

“He’s dead.”

“We all will be one day, even sooner if that mobster fellow keeps going the way he has been.” Alaya snickers. “Devonde must have done something nasty to piss off that Marco twat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Evan narrows his eyes.

“You didn’t hear? Vice’s men hit Devonde’s place tonight. Blew the whole place up! I saw it on my way here.”

All of us freeze, Hellena in particular going pale.

“Tell. Tell was supposed to be doing recon there. At Devonde’s offices…”

We all explode into motion, Evan and me gearing up for a fucking battle, Hellena snapping on the vest I got for her and rushing for the door.

The three of us skid to a halt outside, pausing to look back.

“What do we do about Alaya?” I growl, hating every second wasted, keeping us from rushing out to find Tell. Hellena is drawn, her eyes wild.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll drive!” Alaya shouts, pulling up to the door in my Jeep.

“How did she…?” Evan does a double-take.

“Who cares? Let’s go!” Hell orders, pulling herself together.

With no time to lose, we all pile in.

I’m going to kill her when this is over.

27

HELLENA

“Woohoo!” Alaya whoops, her head out the window, careening around a tight mountain road.

She’s a hell of a driver, I’ll give her that. Even if I am gripping the handlebar above my seat and closing my eyes to avoid looking at the cliff dropping off to our right.

Yet another thing she’s good at…

At this point, though, jealousy is the farthest thing from my mind. Her driving skills and her uncanny knowledge of how to get around unseen is getting us where we need to be in no time. She knows shortcuts that even Evan and Gavin don’t know about.

“Alaya, you better cut that shit out once we hit the streets or we’ll get targeted immediately,” Gavin growls from the passenger seat.

“You. Are. Such. A. Nag,” Alaya grits out through a clenched grin, gunning the engine harder.

As if on cue, a patrol swerves onto the road at the next street ahead of us, hidden behind some wreckage until we came into view.

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