Page 18 of Accidentally Kidnapping the Hitman

“You’d better not stand me up again,” I tease, and when we both hang up, I’m so much lighter than before.

There’s a phone number in my texts. There’s a lifeline. There’shope.

Dean and I already got our second chance at this. But maybe we can have a third.

Nine

Dean

For some stupid reason, my feet lead me all the way back to that fake country bar. Head buzzing with pained static, hands shoved in my pockets and shoulders hunched, I’m not concentrating at all as I walk across the city. Don’t even realize where I’ve gone until I come to a stop outside the front door and blink up at the sign with its neon cowboy hat.

Country tunes drift from inside, and the air smells like bourbon.

Huh.

This place.

Then, because I can’t stop thinking about her for a single second—Annie.She slams back into my brain, front and center.

This is where I met her. Where she came back into my life, just for a few stolen hours. A pang shudders through my hollow chest, and I swallow hard and squint up at the sign.

It’s raining lightly, dark clouds blocking out the stars. My t-shirt is damp, clinging to my back and shoulders, and my bare arms are cold. I don’t care.

Did Annie get home okay?

Is she still upset? Still frightened?

Fuck, I hate that I scared Annie Lowell with the hilt of my knife. Hate that my reality, the truth of who I’ve become, broke the spell we’d been weaving together. Every time I think about her freezing up in my arms, going rigid with terror, I want to slam my forehead against the nearest brick wall.

Wish I could undo everything. Not just tonight—I wanna go back to being a teenager, living next door to the girl of my dreams, and drag my head out of my ass. Give myself a good talking to. Then stop being so moody and misunderstood, and go after what Ireallywant out of life.

Her.

Annie.

She’s the path I should’ve gone down. And I’d give up everything I have, I’d get a new, respectable job and a house with a picket fence and all that shit, if it meant I could have a future with her.

But it’s too late.

She ran from me. She wasrightto run from me.

Annie Lowell deserves so much better. My chest is a bloody crater as I shoulder my way into the crowded country bar.

It’s hot and loud in here, everyone laughing and jostling and spilling their drinks. I cut a path to the bar and order a bourbon, then kick out a stool and sit down with a sigh.

The drink burns my throat.

The music is loud and this whole bar is buzzing.

Doesn’t matter. I’m still cold and dead inside, picturing a ghostly version of Annie coming to me here and hooking that feather boa around my neck.

The memory aches, and it takes a long moment for me to notice the buzzing at my hip. What the hell?

At any given moment, I’ve got at least two burner phones on me—one for work, and one that I texted Wyatt from last year on our birthday. He didn’t reply. He probably never will, and it’s a security risk to keep a phone for this long.

But still, I’ve kept hold of the Wyatt burner just the same. Usually I keep it in my left pocket, but I must have mixed the two phones up tonight, because it’s my left pocket buzzing right now.

The stool creaks beneath me as I shift and tug the burner from my pocket. One mouthful of bourbon down and it must’ve gone straight to my head, because Iswearthat’s Wyatt’s burner vibrating in my hand. I’ve spent plenty of hours staring at this cheap plastic brick, willing my twin brother to call. Each scratch on its case, each janky button, is burned into my memory.

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