Page 126 of Beneath the Burn

Patera extended a thin hand, holding a crisp white envelope. “Mr. Oxford sends his regards.”

Shooting an arm toward him, Nathan grabbed the envelope, but Patera hung onto it.

Patera narrowed his eyes. “A response is expected.” He released it.

Shifting back with an envelope in hand, Nathan grabbed her wrist and led her around the smiling Craig.

“What was that about?” Her heart pounded an impatient tattoo as she glanced over her shoulder. The Craig was gone.

Outside, Colson opened the door to a waiting SUV.

Nathan’s attention swept left to right as he stuffed the envelope into his breast pocket. “Message from Roy.”

A throb erupted behind her eyes. He wrote her a letter? Was he out there, watching her? In one of the hundreds of cars in the lot? Standing behind one of the windows veneering the building? Waiting for an opportunity, for the millisecond of time when all of her guards might be looking the other way?

“Please, get in the car, Miss Grosky.” Colson waited, eyes on the exit behind her, hand on the door of the car.

She shivered and bolted in, sliding across the bench and bumping into Vanderschoot with a screech. “Oh, hi. Sorry.” Damn her out of control pulse.

The seat bounced with Nathan’s weight beside her. He reached for the door handle and pulled.

A hand shot through the crack of door, gripping it and preventing it from closing.

She gasped, frozen to the seat, as Nathan wrestled to close the door. His free hand stretched for the gun at his hip.

The knuckles around the door frame were grooved with callouses. Callouses from guitar strings.

She clamped down on Nathan’s hand over his holster. “It’s Jay.”

Nathan squinted at the door and let go of the handle.

Jay’s drawn face lowered into view. His gaze moved through the car and stopped on her. A tornado of emotions whipped across his weary expression. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he ducked his head, wedging into the third row behind her. The leather seats creaked as he scooted in, Tony following.

Colson steered them into the concert traffic, and Charlee decided to be the first to break the tense silence. “I said not to follow me.” Sandwiched between Vanderschoot and Nathan, she kept her eyes on the windshield.

“And I said you were not to leave my sight.” His deep, dominating tone caressed her back, the bastard.

“Are you still high?” Good grief, she sounded petulant. Maybe she was. She shifted to look at him.

“I’m coming down.” He studied her face, his own pinched in pain. “I’m so sorry.” A whisper.

She would find out shortly how sorry he was. She turned back and looked into Nathan’s soft blue eyes. Looked at the envelope in his breast pocket.

His fingers were hesitant as he pulled it out and handed it to her. “It’ll be obtuse, you know. Anything in writing will be worded in a way that won’t implicate him for what he’s done or plans to do.”

Flipping the white envelope over in her hands, she nodded. “I know.” She couldn’t stop the resignation from dulling her voice. “I’m expecting a legal-team-approved death threat.”

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The god-awful regret constricting Jay’s voice snapped when he heard the bleak acceptance in Charlee’s. “What death threat?”

Bile flooded the back of his throat. She’d already endured so much misery. His aftershow performance settled around him like a miasma. Shame constricted his heart and darkened the very fiber that made her soul shine. He did this. He was no better than Roy.

Her fingers flicked over the controls on the roof until dim light illuminated the envelope in her hand.

“What is that?” He didn’t like the way she held the corners, not opening it, as if there were a bomb inside. “Is that from Roy?”

Her shoulders twitched, and she hunched slightly to the right, toward Nathan.

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