“She’s not wrong. I did,” Bellamy said, walking up to the counter with his coffee, plus one more. “Yours looked low,” he said when he found me frowning at the extra cup.
“Right. Like I’d ever drink around you again after you drugged me the last time.”
I knew it the second the light hit his eyes that I’d said too much.
“So much for you not remembering the night of the shooting, huh, love?”
Shit.
“We need to talk,” he added when I stayed stubbornly quiet.
“I really don’t think we need to do that.”
“Adams is still alive, love. And he’s going to be coming for you.”
“Hence…” I said, waving my arm around the general area.
“Right. But I found you here. You think he couldn’t? It took some digging, but you have connections to this place. You need to go.”
“I need to come with you, blindly trusting your untrustworthy ass, right? That’s what you’re getting at.”
“Shawn, please,” Bellamy said, something slipping into his voice that gave me pause. Was that desperation? It sure sounded like it.
Taking a deep breath I moved out from behind the counter.
“Velle, can I have your phone for a second?” I asked. His brows drew together, but he passed it to me. I clicked on the camera, taking a picture of myself, then one of Bellamy. “If you don’t hear from me in an hour, call the police and tell them this bastard kidnapped me, okay?” I said, giving him his phone back.
“You’re serious?”
“I’m serious,” I said, nodding. “Alright. Let’s go,” I said, making my way toward the door, Bellamy falling into step behind me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bellamy
I found her thanks to two random pieces of good luck.
First, Nia had found a sealed juvie record from Baltimore.
And then Quin got a call from a very confused Kingston Rivers about a call he’d gotten from Shawn, asking him to work private security for the family she’d left behind without them knowing. Which was the exact job we’d hired him to do. He wanted to know how we wanted to handle the billing since we couldn’t both pay him for the same job.
Quin was quick enough on his toes to ask Kingston to bill Shawn.
Which she’d done with a wire transfer.
Which Quin had been able to trace.
To Baltimore.
Nia had been able to do a little digging, enough to narrow down a general area of an otherwise pretty decently big city.
“It’s weird, though,” Nia said, shaking her head at me.
“What is?”
“This is a really, really shitty area. Didn’t you say she was rich?”
I had.
But I was starting to believe that there was more to the story of Shawn than the family money.
“Hey, Bells,” Nia called as I made my way out the door, happy to have a direction to steer myself in.
“Yeah, doll?”
“Maybe don’t, you know, bring the Rolls,” she said, wincing at me.
“Got it. I’ll bring the Cadillac,” I declared, getting a sigh and a head shake from her, but she didn’t say anything else.
A couple hours later, I found myself in the area I figured Shawn had grown up in, the place that had sharpened her edges to deadly points.
There wasn’t much around, so when I saw the convenience store, I figured it was as good a place as any to ask about her. She was a woman who stood out. Someone would have noticed her and remembered her if she was around.
I never expected to find her there.
Behind the counter.
Eating powdered donuts that she’d managed to get on the side of her lip and her chin.
Looking very much at home there.
Because, I imagined, she was.
“How the hell did you find me?” she grumbled when I got her out onto the sidewalk.
“Nia, a coworker of mine. And then Kingston Rivers.”
“Damnit. I knew that bastard was being sketchy with me!” she hissed, eyes burning.
“In his defense, I’d hired him first. With the same directions that you had, so he was understandably confused by the whole situation.”
“You hired him? To protect my family?” she asked, brows furrowing as I opened the passenger side door for her.
“Of course I did, love. They are innocent in all of this. Unlike the two of us,” I said, waiting for her to pull her feet in, then slamming her door. “Point me in a direction. I don’t know the area,” I told her.
I could feel her gaze on my profile as I drove us to her hotel room, as we walked through the lobby, then in the elevator up to her floor.
“Do you have something you want to say?” I asked as she continued to stare as we got into her room.
“Why are you here?” she asked, dropping down on the foot of the bed.
“To get you,” I told her.
“To get me to do what?”
“Go with me,” I admitted, shrugging.
“Go with you where?”
“To get away for a while. Somewhere Adams won’t be able to track us. While my team regroups and figures out how to take him out. For good this time.”