Page 125 of Spying Under the Mistletoe
Evil Sidekick gives me another unfriendly nudge in the direction of the open door.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you manners?” I grumble as I climb in. He snickers behind me and slams the door shut.
Eric walks to the other side of the vehicle and climbs into the back seat to sit next to me. Evil Sidekick turns over the engine and screeches out of the parking lot like a bat about to be boiled in a cauldron of scalding water.
With each passing second, reality sinks in. No one knows I’ve left the building. No one knows where I’m going.
“All right, you got what you wanted,” I say to Eric, doing my darnedest to sound polite. “Now, you can explain what you meant.”
I’d ask him why I have a contract on my head, but to be honest, it doesn’t really matter. That knowledge won’t change anything.
And you don’t have to be Einstein’s offspring to understand why someone wants me dead. It can be summed up in two words: my grandfather.
Revenge runs rampant in his industry.
I guess no one told whoever wants me dead that they’re wasting their time. I’m not exactly up there on his list of favorite relatives.
“Your cousin made a deal with my boss. If Nikolai killed Landon and Adam, the contract on you would be called off. He was quite adamant you’d be left alone after that.”
Unexpected warmth fills my chest at his words. Okay, not entirely appropriate since Nikolai had intended to kill the two men just to spare my life.
“I really am sorry, Chloe. About everything.”
I turn away from Eric, so he can’t see the tears in my eyes.
Nikolai knew that once he fired at Landon and Adam, his life would be forfeit. He had purposely died to protect me.
“Where are we going?” I ask a few minutes later, after somewhat recovering from the realization of what had actually gone down the day my cousin died.
Eric doesn’t bother to answer. He must have missed the part in the movies where the bad guy does the longwinded monologue.
Instead, he removes his phone from his suit pocket and talks to someone in Russian.
Damn, why did I have be so inept at learning languages? If I had been fluent like my cousins, I’d be able listen to Eric’s side of the conversation.
Although from the terse way he’s speaking, maybe it’s just as well I can’t understand him. I doubt he’s talking to his lover about their great sex life.
For a while, I deliberate my escape plans. But it’s hard to plot your escape if you don’t know where you’re going.
I can’t even text Landon on the sly about my predicament. My phone’s in my purse at the seniors’ residence.
My only hope is that he and Adam have noticed I’m missing. But again, that won’t be of much help if they have no idea where I’m headed.
Yep. I’m screwed.
That thought echoes loudly in my head once we leave the city limits.
I go back to contemplating all the possible methods of escape I’ve seen in movies and TV shows over the years.
Which doesn’t amount to much. It’s not often the heroine of a romantic comedy finds herself in a similar situation.
I mentally curse myself for not recently marathoning on 007,Mission Impossible, and the Bourne movies. And any other movie that would’ve trained me to make my daring escape.
After two hours of driving, I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to Canada. I’ve always wanted to go there—Vancouver sounds nice—but I’ve never had the opportunity.
But visiting the country as a hostage isn’t exactly how I envisioned finally getting there.
My hopes of Eric and Evil Sidekick being caught at the Canadian border come to a screeching halt, as the signposts along the highway indicate we’re heading toward Lake Tahoe.
