Page 112 of Beautiful Dangerous

“You have nothing to apologize for.” I check the rear-view mirror again, but there’s still no sign of anyone following us, and I’m not sure whether that makes me nervous or relieved. But then again, no-one saw who shot him. I’m almost sure of that. They would’ve heard the gun but not seen who’d fired it. But then again, all the cameras covering the estate, that’s going to show Olivia and me running, and that in itself is an admission of guilt. “I had to get you out of there, Liv. And when I saw what he was doing to you…”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring out of the window, and I take a breath and put my foot down, I’m taking no chances now. I’ve come this far, we can do this.

“Where are we going?”

“Devil’s Creed compound. You need a change of clothes and we need to pick up some guns.”

She looks at me, and she knows. Now. She knows.

“Where did you shoot him?”

“The hip. I don’t know how much damage I did but he dropped to the floor the instant the bullet hit him.”

“He’ll come for us.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you kill him?”

I shrug, because I don’t know. I really don’t. “I just wanted some time to get you out of there, Liv. Everything that happened tonight, it was impulsive. None of it was planned, but we can do this now.”

“He’ll come for us.” She repeats, her focus now on the blackness outside as we speed toward the compound.

The moment we get there, the gates open and we skid to a halt outside the clubhouse, where Eddie and Angel are waiting.

“The plane’s on standby,” Eddie says as he hands Olivia a holdall. “These are from the girls. A change of clothes, some food.” Eddie jerks his head toward the clubhouse entrance and I jump out of the car and join him. “We sent some men to the airfield, just to make sure that plane takes off. If they find out it isn’t for Javier…”

“Which they will. He’s not stupid, he’ll know that’s where we’ll be heading.”

“No-one following you yet?”

“They will. It’s just a matter of time, which is why we can’t hang about.”

“Do you need back-up?”

I shake my head, watching as Angel hands Olivia the guns. “No. There’s every likelihood he’ll send men here, to the compound, you need to be prepared for that.”

“We are.”

“Jesus, Eddie, I’m sorry for dragging you into this. For starting another fucking war…”

“You don’t know if that’s going to happen yet, Lucca. And if it does, we’ll fight it. You just need to get out of here.”

He’s right.

We do.

Olivia

“You’re gonna be okay, do you hear me?”

I nod as I pull the torn dress off over my head, tossing it out of the window, onto the ground by Angel’s feet. And I’m not sure wearegoing to be okay, but we have no other choice but to run now.

“Olivia?”

I wriggle into jeans, pull on the donated shirt, and replace heels with army boots, yanking my hair back into a ponytail.

“This isn’t how I expected it to end, Angel.”

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