Page 28 of Poisoned Pawn

“No?” I question.

“Yeah, no. No, I’m not getting up. No, I’m not leaving or going anywhere with you. No.”

“Please tell me you aren’t that fucking petulant? ‘Cause I gotta say, you do not want to be giving me this shit right now,” I growl and make another grab for her, but she evades me again. Do I understand her reluctance? Hell yeah, but do I give a fuck? Absolutely not.

“I’m not being petulant. I’m being cautious. I don’t know you, and yet you just expect me to follow you blindly. Screw that.” She points a finger at me. “I need to call my sister.”

“Not happening. Now get up and let’s go,” I tell her, folding my arms and staring her down, daring her to defy me. I see the defiance. It’s radiating off her like a fucking laser beam. She won’t win, and she knows it too. But she will thank me when she’s still breathing tomorrow. Knowing she isn’t going to come willingly, I give it to her straight. “At the risk of sounding like a fucking sheriff in a western, you’ve got a million-pound bounty on your head dead or alive, so you can stay here if you like while the whole of fucking Manchester hunts you like a rabid wolf, or you can get your arse up and put a little trust in me and get the fuck out of here. What’s it going to be, princess?”

She raises her chin and gets to her knees, even like this she only reaches my chest, but I respect the show she’s putting on even if it is bullshit. Her pulse is beating wildly in her neck and her eyes are tight as she holds my stare. Warm satisfaction tracks through me as I wait for her to come at me.

“They know I wasn’t alone that night. Do you honestly think they aren’t tearing this city apart looking for me? If there’s a bounty on my head, there will be one on yours too,” she says with a smug smile. It falls as quickly as it came when I fling out a hand and snatch hold of her throat.

“Oh, princess, I’m counting on it because someone needs to save you from yourself. You have no fucking idea whose bed you slid into that night at Illicit. A tempting little princess like you is no match for me. I can see straight fucking through you and your false bravado. The facade that you have even one inkling what you’re doing is as transparent as glass, and when I shatter it completely, I’m going to swallow you whole.” My fingers flex around her neck for a second before I release her.

She drops to rest her arse on her heels and rubs at her neck. “You don’t know anything about me,” she snaps, but it’s weak.

She spins around, giving me her back as she shuffles off the bed on the opposite side to me. It’s good to keep her distance from me. She aggravates me, makes me feel…out of sorts. God knows how I’m going to get through an almost five-hour drive with her. I’ve murdered people within five minutes of meeting them so five hours is going to test my fucking patience. Although I’ve never wanted to fuck any of those people.

“Where are we even going?” she asks standing and facing me.

“You’ll see when we get there. You’ve got five minutes,” I tell her then leave before she can ask any more questions.

CHAPTERTEN

STAR

As Carter disappears from the room, I reach out my hands and imitate throttling him as my face scrunches up in frustration. I add a foot stomp and a growl for good measure. He makes me feel more vulnerable than I’ve ever felt before, and I don’t know how to deal with that. I was already struggling with my feelings after our hook up, and now I’m stuck with him. He terrifies me yet makes me feel alive. I’m not even sure if it’s him that terrifies me, although I know he could kill me any time and I wouldn’t see it coming, or if it’s how he makes me feel that terrifies me. It would be nice to say I’ve never been so conflicted but that would be a lie. My whole life since the moment I was kidnapped as a child has been conflicted. I’d also like for my life and everything that happens in it to not come down to that one moment of time. But it’s shaped me and not necessarily in the best way.

I look around the room for anything I need to take, but it’s not my room and I have nothing but the clothes I’m wearing. I spot Carter’s hoodie and snatch it up, quickly throwing it back over my head. It’s then I realise that the gun and GPS tracker are gone. Nothing like being completely reliant on a stranger with no weapon and no way to contact anyone.

The thought settles in my mind for a moment, and I have to choke back a tear at feeling so alone.

Knowing my five minutes must be almost up, I head to the bathroom. When I get to the front door, Carter is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a bag at his feet waiting.

He casts his eyes over me, clocking his hoodie and raising a brow, then picks up the bag and opens the door. Forget being a gentleman and letting me go first. No, he marches right out the door.

“Shut the door behind you,” he calls over his shoulder as he opens the boot of his car and tosses the bag inside.

I consider slamming it shut or even leaving it open just because, but I’m above that kind of pettiness. Besides, it’s not going to help our situation.

I climb into the car as Carter starts the engine and all that vulnerability and tension he elicits bleeds out, filling the space like a noxious gas. If he feels it, he doesn’t show it. And I wonder if a man like Carter actually feels anything.

I watch his hand on the gear stick as he changes into sixth once we reach the dual carriageway, captivated by the prominent veins and corded forearm as it flexes beneath his tattoos. His knuckles are rough and littered with scars and his fingernails, although clean, are ingrained with what looks like grease. I think back to the night we met and vaguely remember him mentioning something about working as a mechanic, and while that explains the slightly greasy undertone I can smell on his hoodie and him and his rough manly hands, it’s clear to me that a mechanic isn’t his only job.

No, Carter is much more than your average mechanic. And our worlds are more alike than I thought. I try to track where we are going as he pulls off the dual carriageway after about ten minutes, but I’m not familiar with this area. Five minutes later and we are pulling into a storage facility. It’s late so the only people here are a security guard and one other car parked a few spaces down. I go to open the car door when his hand on my arm stops me.

“Wait here,” he tells me as I look down at his hand griping my arm.

“Er, fuck no,” I blurt out. “You are not leaving me out here.” I realise how stupid it sounds after I was just giving him shit for not letting me call Roxy and expecting me to go with him wherever, but I’m aware that if what he said back at the house is true, then I can’t do this alone. The idea that I have to rely on others pisses me off almost as much as Carter does. Being watched over like a fragile child has been my life, and in the last five years I had just started to relish living my life how I want to. Guess that’s fucked now.

“This is not up for discussion,” he says biting each word out like it physically pains him, only it’s me it pains as his grip on my arm strengthens. “Stay here, lock the doors and if something happens you drive the fuck away.” He releases me with a little shove making my arm fly across my body while he slips out the car.

“Jerk!” I mutter as he begins to jog toward the entrance of the storage facility. But I lock the doors like he suggested then I see him talking to the security guard for a couple of minutes before he disappears down a corridor.

I look around the car park suddenly feeling like the unlucky goatleft out for the T-Rex inJurassic Park. And when I look back to the security guard, he’s watching me as he talks on the phone.

“Fuck! I don’t like that,” I whisper to myself. “Come on, Carter. Come on,” I chant, my leg bouncing with nervous energy. “Come on, god dammit!” Lights blast through the side window as another car pulls into the car park, completely blinding me for a moment. As the car turns and my vision becomes clear, I see they have parked just ahead of us and to the left. From this angle I can see there are two people inside, but I can’t see their faces. I look back inside to the security guard and see he’s now off the phone and looking down the corridor that Carter went down.

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