Page 69 of As Thick As Thieves

What if she’d run ahead of us and climbed in? Or if I’d wandered to the car to get my fucking wallet for that condom earlier?

My stomach twisted as her scared voice reached me, the ringing in my ears starting to fade.

“What the fuck?” Penn choked out with wide eyes, glancing at me as I watched what was left of the car burn. I reached for her shaking hand to try and comfort her, not wanting her to have a panic attack when we were so vulnerable here out in the open.

Someone screamed from the beach, and I heard the sound of a child crying somewhere, too, but no one was hurt from what we could see. Luckily, the flying chunks hadn’t hit anyone.

“I think we found out who was the target at the track,” Knox grunted. “It can’t be a coincidence that everywhere Penn goes, something gets shot at or blown up.”

“Who would be after her though? If it was her father, he’d be going after Lopez and Lavaro,” I pointed out as Penn released my hand and I slowly got to my feet, inspecting the area around us for trouble. No one was around, so the explosion had been caused by something being planted on the car either before we got here, or while we were swimming.

Knox got to his feet, too, while encouraging Penn to do the same, keeping her close as he scanned our surroundings for danger, too. She pressed even more firmly into his side as the fear on her face increased. “Why would someone be trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know, Whitlock, but we’ll find out,” Knox promised, steering her towards me. “Stay with her while I check my car.”

“It might explode!” she shrieked as she reached for him, but I held her against me and kissed the top of her head.

“Knox knows his weapons, babe. That includes explosives.”

“But what if—”

“I’ll be fine,” he said firmly as he made his way towards it, starting to inspect the vehicle the moment he got there.

There was a reason Knox handled so much of the protection details, he knew his shit. I couldn’t lie, my dick got ridiculously hard every time I saw him in his tactical gear, too.

“The only person who’d be pissed at you would be Stone. Maybe—”

“It’s not Stone,” she bit out sharply, surprising me with her anger. She pulled back from me, crossing her arms with a scowl. “He learned his lesson, and he feels like an ass, not to mention he’s too busy running from blood-thirsty crews right now to give a fuck about me.”

I studied her for a moment before speaking, my voice low. “How do you know that?”

“I just do. You saw him at the Donovans that day, he was upset that I’d been hurt thanks to his actions. There’s no way he’d blow up your car to kill me, let alone risk you.”

It made sense, and I relaxed a little at the thought. She was right, Stone wouldn’t risk me, even if he was out to get her.

Knox waved us over once he was finished, his voice gruff. “Mine’s fine. Which makes me think it’s definitely Penn who’s the target.”

“Why can’t people just leave me alone? I just got used to being free again!” she hissed, sympathy filling his eyes as he brushed damp hair back from her face.

“We’ll get them. I think we need to call in a favor with Beckett, though. We have manpower, but they’d have better contacts. Our resources are only helpful if there’s an online presence, and there’s no security here for us to breach. If someone tampered with the car here, we won’t be able to find proof.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on Penn. She looked pale, defeat written all over her pretty face. If anyone thought they could cage my girl, they had another thing coming. “Let’s get home. I’ll call in help to clean up this mess.”

“You know we’ll have to speak to Stone, right? He’ll have to handle the cops,” Knox muttered, making me sigh.

“Yeah. We’ll stop there on the way home, and we can call Beckett when we get there, too. I’ll text Cruz to let him know what’s happened. Give me your phone.”

He handed it over, murmuring something to Penn as she shuffled even closer to him. I let her sit in the front, it was obvious she didn’t want to let go of Knox’s hand. At least with him comforting her, it meant my hands were free to start organizing new bank cards and identification.

Chapter Fifteen

Penn

Knox headed into the compound the moment we arrived, leaving me to sit in the car while Drake climbed out and paced on the phone. Cruz had freaked out about the car being blown up, and the two of them were having a pretty big discussion about it.

I waited for fifteen minutes before opening the door, giving Drake a pleading look. “I’m going to piss my pants. How much longer is this going to take?”

“Knox could be a while. Him and Stone are currently on a call with the Psychos,” he answered, holding the phone away from his ear. “Can’t you hold it?”

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