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“Cooper, let’s go,” she says, holding three of my fingers.

I hold her hand and intertwine our fingers. “She said she is not who you think she is. You should believe her. If you are a genuine fan of whoever this person is, won’t you protect their privacy? Or are you just looking for approval through likes and comments on social media? Searching for clout?”

“I would never.”

“Then you wouldn’t have approached her recording and without her knowledge and consent.” I feel her stiffen beside me. I look at my watch. “It’s time for our dinner reservation. Let’s go.” I toss him his phone and pull Rosalie away.

“Don’t worry about the video. I delete it from his album and trash,” I say when we were out of earshot.

We get to Upstage Dinner Theater fifteen minutes before and a hostess escort us to our table. We have a great view of the stage and I take the seat that would allow me to look around and see the entire venue except the two tables behind me. I can readjust every so often to look behind me without looking too suspicious. I didn’t look at which play they were playing, so I’m surprise to see the iconic characters from Pride and Prejudice running from zombies as the opening act.

I find the men following us when the actors commanded the audience to look to the left, but they were looking at us without blinking. One of them slides his thumb from one sideof his neck to the other before pointing out to me. The crow, standing on a stack of coins in his hand, tells me who they are. I shoot a quick message to Caleb and hope they can make it here before things get more dangerous.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Do we have to?” Vivi asks, gripping Maggie’s hand.

“You all have a better chance of staying out of harm’s way. I know is not ideal, is far from ideal and what we thought this trip would be, but they are willing to care for us until we can figure this out,” I say.

“Are you guys sure? Why does it feel you guys are gambling a lot more than us? This is not your problem.,” says Ginny.

I watch as they look at each other before the eldest of the brothers speaks.

“I can’t share details, but we have an old grudge with the Crows that needs closure. We don’t want civilians to end up as collateral. If we can provide your safety, we will,” Caleb Callahan says with his imposing aura and deep voice.

Ginny nods and Maggie sighs. We handed our phones and Curtis, Cooper’s twin, transfer the contacts and information from our electronic sims cards and save it for later. They agree to let us talk with our parents once a week through their phones. Never in a million years I would have believed that we will put our faith and safety in the hands of four men we met less than four weeks ago.

Cooper doesn’t feel like a total stranger, but his brothers do. I’m fighting the feeling of grabbing my members and keep them behind me at the thought of each of them leaving with oneof the brothers. When they start to get ready to leave and as my members got to get their luggage, I walk up to Colin.

“Hey,” I say, and he smiles tightly.

I look around, wondering how to bring this up to him. This has nothing to do with the Cartel after me, but I think he should be aware just in case he needs to make some change to his plan of protection for Vivi. I open my secret phone. Curtis did nothing to it. He examines it and deem it okay. He winked at me and praise me for having such a customizable incredibly difficult phone to hack. I open my photo app and scroll until I find his picture.

“I want to show you something.” I turn the phone towards him and watch him as he stares at the photo on the screen of my phone. “I can’t confirm it, but I think he is stalking Vivian. If is true, I think you should know about this.”

Colin grabs my phone and a second after, his phone lights up. He has now a copy of the photo. “I’ll keep an eye.”

I nod and head back to Cooper. We lean on his bike and watch as Maggie leaves with Curtis, Vivi leaves with Colin, and Ginny leaves with Caleb. I think they are going to the town the brothers live in, but I don’t know if they are gonna take any detours. We stay in Heartstone to make sure is me who they absolutely want.

“Now that is just the two of us; I need to teach you something,” Cooper says after his brothers and my friends are out of sight.

“What?”

“How to ride a motorcycle.”

I could feel my eyes growing wide. Why would I need to learn how to drive that?

Cooper finds a long solitary road.

I’m wearing jeans and a sleeveless white tank top. My hair is in a low ponytail. I’ve worn Cooper’s additional helmet more than I’ve ever worn anything else in my life. I quickly learn that it is best to have the hair completely down, or a low ponytail, or a braid. His black Yamaha bike stands beside us. I take my helmet off. He only opens his visor. He goes true the basic of the ignition button, the accelerator and the brakes.

He had me turn it on and off twice. Then I practice getting onto the bike and kicking the kickstand on and off. The first time he grabs both the bike and me. I wasn’t expecting the weight of it. After I got the handle of turning it on, holding its weight right after I kick off the kickstand, Cooper sits behind me and guides me through the first few feet.

The nerves driving his motorcycle remind me of the nerves I had during VERA’s first concert. I remember being a ball of excitement and fear. It wasn’t a sold out show but the venue housed around five thousand people. Now I’m not only driving an expensive vehicle, I’m acutely aware of the injuries he and I could get if I make a mistake.

He guides me a few feet by a few feet until we are far from where we started. Cooper helps me turn around and we keep moving feet by feet. I feel he can tell my confidence is growing because he hops off after he helps me turn around again.

“Go ahead. Do the same thing alone. Remember which one is the break and be gentle with the accelerator.” I nod and gulp down my anxiety.