Page 55 of Deadly Business

“Hazel, run!”

We rolled, ending up between the forest and the back yard. Leaves crunched under our bodies as we grappled with each other. Our movements created a symphony of destruction in our thrashing.

I focused on hitting Thumbs, but memories assailed my thoughts—stupid things you didn’t remember until your life was on the line. Moments from death I didn’t picture money or any of the lavish parties we’d thrown. I saw Hazel and Cyrus. Dreams of what our future might have been sailed by in a flash.

Thumbs and I wrestled on the ground, turning the bare patches to mud. The night smelled of metal, blood, and dirt.

Thumbs hit me on the cheek, but his win distracted him and allowed me to gain the upper hand. I flipped us, putting me on top, but was losing strength quickly. We’d run through the woods twice and survived being shot at in less than thirty minutes.

If I lost an ounce of momentum, the situation would turn against us in a heartbeat, and I’d end up buried under Thumbs. I wouldn’t let that happen.

“Corbin,” Hazel screamed.

I jammed my elbow into Thumbs’ nose needing to find her.

His eyes blazed with fury. He bucked, trying to get me off his stomach as Hazel’s body whipped past us at a full run. I tracked her with my gaze until losing her behind the silhouette of another man, taller than her by at least a foot. Their black outlines were the only thing visible in the lights from our back porch.

I heaved out my last pant, not sure how much longer I’d be able to continue, when a gun cocked beside us and we stilled, our fists both in midair.

We turned to see who just gained the upper hand.

I released a breath and rolled off Thumbs when I saw Drake’s gigantic form standing two feet from us. He kept his weapon trained on Thumbs, who did not move. He lay still, his back flat on the ground, sucking in giant gulps of air.

My shoulder ached from a good hit from Thumbs, but I rolled off him and stood, giving Drake a thank you with my expression. Hazel ran into my arms, and I squeezed her tightly. She stuck her head in my neck and sobbed silently. The crickets covered most of the noise when they restarted their nightly symphony.

Two black Escalades slammed to a stop in front of the house and men jumped out of the backseat. I watched from a sliver of visibility between two houses as a slew of men descended upon the backyard.

Ridge stopped at the edge of the bird bath, now tipped to one side, and shook his head at the scene. “Fuck me. You couldn’t keep the crime scene in one location? We’ve been driving all over this fucking town. Think of the paperwork.”

Drake laughed. When things were quiet and nothing happened, he’d been mute, but the life-and-death situation with bullets flying made the man turn into Mr. Chuckles. Something was definitely wrong with him.

He laughed so hard, his gun bobbed with his movements. “Like you’ll fill out the paperwork.”

It was nice they found something funny to laugh at after Hazel and I survived almost being executed. I held her tighter, letting her cry into my shoulder, and kept her safe so no one else saw her breakdown. Regardless of what she thought, she was still one of the strongest women I’d ever met. She’d earned a much-needed cry.

CHAPTER25

HAZEL

Two hours later, my tears calmed, and my face dried. We sat in the most boring, drab gray office building I’d ever seen in my entire life. And I worked at a bank.

Someone came and sucked the life and color out of the building. It had no substance whatsoever. Well, as long as you didn’t consider gray a color. It had a lot of that.

Gray carpet.

Gray walls.

Gray everything.

It made me need a nap.

But I had no plans to complain because we weren’t outside running through the woods, and even though Ridge’s security office was full of guns—I hadn’t seen them but it wasn’t a far jump to make—nobody used those guns to shoot at us.

If it guaranteed me safety, I’d have sold my clothing and furniture to purchase everything in gray to live in the safety of Ridge’s security office for the rest of my life.

I’d beg him to set me up in one of the offices we walked past. I’d be quiet as a mouse. They wouldn’t even know I lived here. It sounded like a perfect plan to me, but my gut warned the man’s lap where I’d sat the last thirty minutes wouldn’t necessarily agree. Corbin didn’t seem like he wanted to live the rest of his life in a boring—but safe—office building in Pelican Bay.

Maybe he’d do it for me.

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