Page 28 of Master of Lies

I tried to keep my voice low, outside with the wind whistling by my ears. “Nothing, but that’s not the issue!” I persisted. “She fell into this by chance—”

“By chance? What the fuck did she think she was doing in that prison, flirting with your dangerous, felonious ass? That was shit-for-brains stupid. We don’t need stupid people draining our energy and resources. Hate to be a dickhead, my man, but I’ve got other things to do. Things that are more important to our cause. We all do.”

“Goddamnit, that’s not how—”

“I know. You feel responsible for her.” Darius’s voice was wry. “Of course. You feel responsible for every fucking thing that flashes through your field of vision.”

“Bullshit,” I snarled. “Boer had Mickey cut to pieces, and I don’t want it happening to this girl! So fucking sue me!”

“Ah. Hey.” Darius’s voice softened, but only slightly. “Listen. I’m sorry about Mickey. For real. I know you liked the guy. Tonight must have been total shit. Hey, Amos is monitoring the cop shop, and we haven’t heard about APBs or manhunts announced. So far, so good. Maybe they’re trying to keep the press out of it. You off-roading to Mandan Pond tomorrow, like we planned? It’s remote, and outside of any search perimeters they might establish. Go there and hang tight while we regroup.”

“Fine, whatever, but you guys have to help me cover Sandee,” I repeated.

“No, we don’t. Boer doesn’t have any reason to bother some random babe who came to visit you in prison.” Darius had the overly even, controlled tone of a guy talking someone down off a ledge. “He’ll forget about her. Just give her a big nice wad of cash, put her on a bus, tell her to go spend a month someplace far away from here. On a beach, maybe. She’ll be fine. There’s a thousand more girls where she came from. Boer won’t waste time with her. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”

What Darius said made sense, but every instinct I had was screaming that it was dead wrong. “I heard what those guys in the prison said,” I said. “He’s fixated on her. By now, those assholes know everything about her. Where she lives, where she works, her friends, her social media. Every detail. She’ll be dead in a day if I cut her loose.”

“So what are you proposing?” Darius bitched. “A twenty-four-hour security detail until Boer is out of commission? Jesus, man. Forget it. We have no idea how long that will take, and we don’t have the manpower. We have to come up with a new strategy now that Mickey’s dead. Face it. Your girl is not part of our mission.”

“I am real fucking sorry it’s so inconvenient, but I don’t want to see her die!”

Darius made a frustrated sound. “You’re nuts. Wait, hold on. Is she cute?”

“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

Darius paused, and then chuckled under his breath. “Ahhh,” he murmured. “I see. So she is cute. I’m betting you’ve already had a few generous helpings up there in the cabin, am I right? And you don’t really feel like sharing? Is that the vibe?”

“That’s not what’s going on here.” I growled. “I’m just trying to keep her alive.”

“I understand you’re sex-starved, being stuck in prison and all, but we’ve got more important things to do than make sure you’ve got a warm, wet, welcoming place to shove your—”

“Shut the fuck up, Darius. We’ll talk when you’re back in the country.”

“After you top up, right? You want some more sugar? Ooh, baby.”

I hung up on him, muttering obscenities into the wind.

Foul-mouthed, dirty-minded bastard. Darius was a relentless ballbreaker, but he wouldn’t want to see an innocent girl get hurt, either. He’d come around. So would the others. But goddamn, were they ever going to make me pay for it in blood. And they couldn’t help me tomorrow, in any case. They’d wouldn’t be here for days.

Damn. Months of my life, locked in that hellhole, and nothing to show for it but the memory of Mickey’s mutilated body to haunt me. Just what I needed. A fresh dose of crushing guilt. I was used to it by now, but fuck, it exhausted me.

So I just stood there in the snow, wondering what to do with Sandee. I couldn’t just let her go as Darius had suggested. Nor could I just tell her to run, unprotected. For fuck’s sake, she hadn’t demonstrated even the slightest ability to look out for herself. As evidenced by her decision to throw herself onto my dick.

Not that it was fair to blame her for that. I hadn’t fought very hard. My bad.

But that wasn’t the point. I couldn’t shake my irrational conviction that f I turned my back on Sandee, Boer and his goons would eat her for breakfast, and then I’d have her on my conscience, along all the rest. There wasn’t any more room in that dark closet in my mind. It was at full capacity.

So I had to carry her. She would slow me down, have opinions, question my decisions. It would be dangerous, unwieldy, and stupid. God, I was such an asshole sometimes, I astonished myself. But I was too blasted to come up with an alternative plan of action. I’d be on the run from Boer’s team and the law, no back-up, dragging a knockout blonde along with me. Way to avoid attracting attention.

I finally gave into the cold, and came back inside. I needed a couple of hours of rest, but it felt dangerous and counterintuitive to let down my guard down with Boer out there on the loose. To say nothing of a mind-blowing naked girl in my bed.

I entered quietly. Sandee was a small bump in the covers, a shock of pale hair messed over the pillow. I checked the monitors. The cameras I had placed at intervals of a half-mile all showed quiet white road, falling snow. No activity.

I stripped off my shirt and slid into the bed, trying not to wake her up, but I was too big not to cave in the mattress. Sandee slid downhill, right down into the well, fetching up next to me. Wedged up tight. Her body felt good. Soft, hot.

Her eyes fluttered, and she gazed up at me, and I was freshly struck by how ridiculously pretty she was. Those huge, hypnotic eyes. That smooth, perfect skin under the mess of smeared make-up. Those full, cushiony pink lips, puffy from being passionately kissed.

I suddenly remembered how those lips looked clasped around my dick, and instantly I was stone hard and aching again. As if I hadn’t just come explosively.

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