Page 25 of Bullet

He’s actually not smug about it. I can see that he still thinks that we’re playing games here. That I came because there was no doubt that I was going to let myself be talked into this.

Honestly, I thought that maybe I was.

But hearing about Hamish’s range being burned to the ground, on top of my getting fired, has made me realize that we’re not just dealing with an aggrieved father. Harold is a whole different kind of unhinged than I ever could have known.

“Everyone has their price,” I agree, my head held high. I need to just leave. Why am I even still here? “I just can’t let my sister’s life and freedom be mine.”

I make to exit the kitchen, the pie half finished, this whole thing a mess, but Hamish steps into my path. His hand shoots out and closes around my wrist. I don’t have to jerk away. He releases me instantly, so that it was just a brush of fingertips against bare skin, and not a hold. Not a collar. No confinement.

“Please wait,” he implores me, all traces of anything playful long vanished. “If Harold is going to escalate, then you’re already in his crosshairs. You have to be careful. You have to let me make this right. Even if it doesn’t mean working for the club or being my lawyer. I owe you that.”

I want to glibly decline the offer, tell him I can take care of myself, stroll out of here, and never see him again, but I don’t say anything. I can’t. I’m frozen again, breathing too hard, every breath sucking up more and more of his fresh scent.

He’s different today than the last time I saw him. I don’t know how to explain what it is, except that he smells more man, more himself, raw and vital, rather than fresh air, cologne, or even leather.

Something fires down low in my belly. I swallow thickly against the rise of emotion. I vowed that I’d never need someone to take care of me, that I could do that for Willa and myself, but here I am, facing down a threat I never thought possible. I want to be too proud, but that would just be plain stupidity, and whatever I am, I’m not dumb.

My phone vibrates in my inner pocket, and I stumble back, nearly tripping over my own towering heels.

Hamish’s arm shoots out and braces me, his hand splayed over the small of my back, so huge that it spans all the way across it with ease.

“Willa?” I answer. “Are you okay?”

She knew I was coming here. I knew she was working late. I had to leave before she was done at nine, but then she had to count cash, clean, and do her other duties before she could lock up and leave. Even still, she should have been at home by now, or out with her friends, against my wishes, for one last hurrah at freedom.

It’s a sad and sorry truth, but she hardly ever calls me unless there’s a real problem. Texting? She’ll text me all sorts of random stuff, all day long, but that’s different.

“I think someone’s following me.”

Chapter 8

Lynette

“Iwas driving home and I noticed this car almost right away,” Willa whispers, voice wavering. “It’s a dark car, totally nondescript, but isn’t that what they say people use, so that it doesn’t draw attention?”

It takes all my will not to drop the phone, and if it wasn’t for the beast of a man practically holding up my whole body with one hand, I might already have swayed to the side and fallen over.

“Are you sure?” I force my voice to be strong. I don’t want Willa to hear how scared I sound. I sure as hell can hear the fear on the other end of the line, as well as the watery sniffle.

“Yeah. I’ve been driving around, taking wrong turns, doing it for the past twenty minutes, and it’s still following.”

My mind goes immediately to her gas tank. “Please tell me you have fuel.”

“It was on fumes this morning, so I just filled up before work. Luckily.”

I know that’s not the slightest guarantee of safety, but at least she doesn’t have to stop or pull over. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell her. I’m always the one who has answers, and if I don’t have them, I find them, but right now, I’m completely at a loss.

“Hold on,” I yelp, pushing the phone against my shoulder. “Hamish?”

The tall lanky guy called Smoke pops his head around the corner of the kitchen like he’s been out there this whole time,lingering and listening. “Hamish?” he asks incredulously, a broad smile spreading over his face. “Oh my god! No wonder you didn’t want to tell me.”

Though I’ve just outed him, Hamish doesn’t even turn around. He’s fixated entirely on me, as though the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. “What’s happening?”

“Willa’s driving home. She thinks someone’s following her. I’m not sure if she was at work or at a friend’s, or where she left, but she says she’s certain. I don’t know what to do.”

“Can I talk to her?”

“What?” I want to rear away and keep the phone well out of his reach, but when he holds out his palm, his other hand still pressed tight to my back, I pass it over without further hesitation.

---