“Quinley, if you’re listening and you really don’t want to come back, hide well,” Cole said, his voice lowering. “His family wants to get to you and control the fallout before the press finds you.”
“We get it, Cole. She hears you,” Elias said on Quinley’s behalf, his heart squeezing in response to Quinley’s flinch and sickly expression. Just when he thought she couldn’t get any paler, she had. “We have to go. We need to change vehicles.”
“Just…don’t let this land you in jail,” Cole said. “They’re working on identifying you and the car service now. Needless to say, neither Ana nor I have offered up any hints.”
“How did you know she was with me?”
“The timing and a gut feeling. Plus, after Ben’s stunt the night of the gala, Gage and I thought it best to put a tracker on the vehicle, just in case another kid tried to take it for a joyride. The dash cam feed is on both our phones.”
His brother had pulled up the video and watched her jump in then. “Key’ll be on the seat. Let Gage know.”
“Be careful. Call me when you get on the road for an update.”
Elias ended the call and shot her a look. “Let’s do this fast. The less people who see you, the better.”
Cole and Gage hadn’t installed the planned security lights to this side of the building yet, but he was grateful for their procrastination since the darkness helped hide them. Quinley opened the door to the limo as he rounded the back, and Elias had to pull her out of the seat because of the tight dress.
Thankfully the open door of the limo blocked most of her from view. No one seemed to be paying them any attention, but how long that would last as the news and photos broke remained to be seen.
A swipe of his hand unlocked the truck thanks to the key fob in his pocket. He opened the door, reaching down to grasp her waist with both hands to lift her onto the passenger seat. No way could she make the climb inside since it required being able to use the step bar, and in that dress…
He tossed the key inside the limo and shut the door, hurrying around the front of the truck to get behind the wheel. A gut hunch told him to leave via the rear lot where Brooks typically parked his tow truck, and Elias followed his instincts, all the while stretching an arm into the backseat to grab a duffle bag and shove it at her. “Help yourself to a shirt out of there to hide your dress. And maybe take down your hair so it isn’t so fancy.”
Quinley hurried to unzip the duffle and dug inside, pulling out one of his favorite shirts from the top to disguise her dress before she set to work yanking out the pins with painful-looking speed. A tiny mountain of them formed on her lap as he took a left out of the lot onto Dow. Seconds later via the rearview mirror, he saw three black SUVs blow through the intersection. They’d made it with seconds to spare. But they weren’t off the island yet. Would her ex demand they shut down the bridge? Have roadblocks in place to search for her? “Ana’s house is on the way.”
“I said no. Keep driving,” she said softly.
The broken determination of her voice left him glaring out the dash as he drove them down the dark backroad. “You’ve got time to think on the way out of Wilmington. You can decide before we get there. Or…you can ride with me for a while. There are a lot of towns between here and the mountains.”
“The mountains,” she said softly, her voice quivering a bit from her nerves and anxiety, barely audible. “I want to go to the mountains with you. I’ll pay you for the hassle of taking me. My parents have a house in Asheville. It sits empty more often than not, but I know the codes and where the cameras are at the main house. I think I can stay in the pool house without being seen. Please, Elias, Iknowyou want me out of your hair as soon as possible but… Please. Will you please take me there? Get me away from here?”
He released a lung-thrashing breath. She was right. He’d be better off to end this now. To drop her off at Ana’s whether she agreed to it or not.
But if he did, he’d be no better than the goons chasing after her, forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. “The place I’m heading to isn’t far from Asheville. If we make it off the island and out of Wilmington without being stopped, we should be okay.”
“You’ll do it? You’ll drive me?” Relief flooded her tone.
“Yeah,” he said, feeling as though he were signing off on the deed in blood. “Looks like we’re going on a road trip.”
ChapterThree
Pull over,” Quinley said after they’d made it out of Wilmington, across the bridge into Leland, and a few more miles toward their destination.
“You change your mind?”
“I’m going to be sick. So unless you pull over…”
Elias quickly did as ordered, and she held tight to the door handle as he got them off the road and stopped.
She didn’t have time to get out, so she simply flung open her door and leaned sideways, making awful sounds as she dry heaved from the nerves and stress of the day since she had nothing in her stomach.
There were police everywhere, and although it seemed they were simply performing their normal patrols, every time she spotted one, her insides burned with unease. Every second that passed increased the pressure inside her until it felt as though she’d self-combust.
She heaved again and again. Nothing emerged but the pain of it brought tears to her eyes.
She had only herself to blame for the mess she was in. But the next week? The next month? She had yet to walk the hell on earth she’d created with her choices, but she would, and that fear and trepidation overwhelmed her.
“Take a few sips of this,” Elias said, his hand grasping her left forearm to place a plastic bottle in her hand.
