“How’d you find me?”
He looks at the sky. “Eyes up there. You have a very distinctive car.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting any of this, you know?” I shrug. “My folks died. I was only in town for the funeral.”
Corky stares at me, curses bitterly in his native Russian, and then glances over his shoulder. “We missed them. We saw no one, we spoke to no one.”
Seven heads nod silently, and the men get back into the SUVs.
Back to me. “There will be another. He will not be your friend, like I am.” He tugs his button-down open to reveal a round scar inches from his throat. “I remember. My debt is paid, Silas.”
I look down at my hands, as if his blood is still on them from that day, so many years ago, now. He’d taken a bullet, dropped in the middle of a hot zone in a firefight with a rival crew. I took two to the thigh dragging him to safety and kept pressure on the wound until our guys mopped up the fight and a Cabal medic was able to get to us.
He almost died, and I spent three months in recovery and PT after that. It bonded us, and he always felt he owed me a life debt.
“We’re even, then.” I hold his eyes. “But tell them I’m not going back. They can come after me, but it’s not gonna go well. And if anyone harms so much as one hair on Naomi’s head, they’ll see a whole other side of me, brother. Believe that.”
He nods. “I will say this. It won’t stop them, but for you, I will say it.” He braces on the sidestep of the SUV, in the opening of the door and frame. “Go. You will not have a long head start.”
I don’t waste time on elaborate goodbyes—I swing down into the DB5, crank the motor, and gun the throttle wide open. Naomi squeaks in shock as we bolt forward, tires squealing with a little fishtail before catching and sending the expensive vintage car rocketing out of the gas station. I carve a shrieking line around the on-ramp to the freeway, cut around a slower-moving semi, and only after I’ve put a few miles at top speed do I slack off on the accelerator.
“What was that, Silas?” Naomi’s voice is small and shaky.
“An old friend doing me one last favor,” I answer. I glance at her and decide she deserves more of an explanation than that. “He works for my former bosses in the Cabal, the crime syndicate I was a part of. He was supposed to bring me back to Boston alive, but he owes me his life, so he let me go. It’s a one-shot deal. Whoever the Cabal sends after me next will just shoot on sight.”
“Oh. I see.”
I reach my hand over to her, and she hesitates, then takes my hand in hers. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you. Okay? I can and I will. What’s more, my brothers in the Arrows are all top-tier badasses. No one will hurt you. Not my enemies, and not your family.”
She licks her lips, nods once. “I believe you. I trust you.”
It makes me feel good, that she trusts me. I wanna hold onto that trust. Keep earning it.
I squeeze her hand; she doesn’t let go. My heart pounds in my chest as I watch her out of the corner of my eye—it’s a little thing. A minute adjustment of fingers: palm to palm, fingers together, and then, with a shy sidelong glance at me, she laces her fingers with mine. Rests our joined hands on her bare thigh.
“Is…is that okay, Silas?”
I should take my hand back. But I don’t.
“Yeah, honey. It’s good.”
God, who the fuck am I when I’m with her? I don’t know, anymore.
Once we reach Cincinnati, I find the parking garage and the coordinates easily, circling up to the top floor. There’s no one up here but us, for now. I put it in park, angled so I can see the ramp.
Naomi is still holding my hand; I have to let go to shift, but she always takes it again once I’m done. An electric current sizzles from her palm into mine, up my wrist to my elbow, to my shoulder and into my chest, where that arcing pulse of energy causes my heart to hammer like I’ve just deadlifted four plates.
I hear tires on concrete. Unbuckle, rest my pistol against my right thigh. A black Ford Explorer emerges from the shadowed curve of the up-ramp, black and a few years old. Black-painted heavy-duty steel wheels and an aftermarket spotlight announce the vehicle as having been a cop car. I see Taj behind the wheel—thick black hair cut in the classic Hollywood Leading Man style: short on the sides with a neat part, side-swept. Clean-shaven, wearing mirrored aviators. I uncock my pistol and exit the car, stuffing the weapon back behind my waistband.
Taj parks with his nose a few feet from mine and unfolds from the Explorer. “Silas, hello.” His voice is lightly accented with an Indian lilt.
“Thanks for meeting us.”
“When Inez says go, you go.” He shrugs, leaning back against the
“Truth,” I say. “So, whaddya got for me, brother?”
He pushes off the hood and rounds to the trunk, popping it open. Two black duffel bags sit side by side in the trunk.
