Colton: Rogue Beginnings

Cocking her head, she arched an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think I even saw what they were driving at all?”

He smiled sheepishly as he shrugged. “I was in the parking lot last night when you pulled up. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss Justin if he left. I saw you look over at the last car he was seen driving. A black Toyota Camry with an Alabama tag and a Tasmanian Devil sticker in the back window.”

“Yeah, that was it. I felt like someone was watching me—I guess that was you—and then I saw the car. I thought it looked like the one I saw them get into at the diner, but I didn’t know for sure, since I couldn’t see the plates from where I was.”

Colton went quiet for a few moments, glancing at the bathroom door, and when he looked back at her, his greenish hazel eyes were full of worry and pain. Her heart clenched with sympathy as it hit her what finding the severed finger could mean for him.

All she’d been thinking about up until that point was how freaked out she felt, how nervous and scared, and it made her realize that she’d been being selfish. His cousin was missing, and he’d just walked into a hotel room rented in Justin’s name to find someone had their finger cut off in there.

Either his cousin was one of the Bad Guys, which wasn’t good, or he was now missing a finger and possibly in more danger, which was even worse. Regardless, in either case it was a shitty situation all around.

“Hey,” she said softly, waiting until he met her eyes before continuing. “He might not have been here at all. He could have had his car stolen, and maybe his wallet was inside it when it happened. He might not even be in Atlanta at all.”

He inhaled deeply and something passed quickly through his eyes, too fast for her to see what it was, as he shook his head. Opening his mouth, he paused, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cellphone. His thumb quickly swiped over the screen a few times before he handed it to her.

“This is Justin. Do you recognize him as any of the men you saw?”

Accepting the phone, she hesitated and took a deep breath before she looked down. She hated to be the one to give him any kind of bad news, but she knew if it was her cousin who was missing, she’d want answers, no matter what they were.

Finally making herself look, she studied the image on the screen. It was of Colton and the man she assumed was Justin, standing with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Colton was grinning at the camera, his hazel eyes bright and his smile infectious. Justin was smiling too, but it wasn’t as wide as his cousin’s, and it didn’t reach his blue eyes.

She studied it closely before handing the phone back to him. “He wasn’t one of the threatening men, but I honestly can’t tell you if he was the other one or not. He looks about the same size, but I didn’t get a good look at the man the other two were leading around. He had a hat on, and he never once looked up or even gave me much of a profile view.”

“I don’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved,” he replied softly as he put his phone back in his pocket.

“I found a few receipts in the trashcan, but I don’t think they’ll be much help in figuring out where they went next.”

He took them all from her and stuffed them into his pocket without looking at them as he stood. “Okay. We need to figure out what to do with that finger, and then we need to get out of here. We shouldn’t have stayed as long as we did since they might have come back for something.”

“Um, what do you mean, get rid of the finger? We need to call the police!”

“No, we don’t,” he replied grimly, pausing in the bathroom doorway to look back at her. “I can’t really expla

in why right this moment, but I promise I will once we’ve put some distance between us and this hotel.”

She felt her eyes widen as her mouth popped open, and disbelief flowed through her as she quickly stood and followed him to the bathroom. “Okay, first of all, what in the hell makes you think I’m going to leave the hotel with you? And second, the police can run the print off that finger, and then you’ll know exactly who it belongs to. You’ll know whether it’s your cousin’s, and if it’s not, you’ll know who he’s with.”

“You said they saw you here and at the diner. You even said one of them recognized you. And judging by this finger and all the blood, something bad went down here. You can identify them, Katia. They could decide to come back and take care of loose ends at any moment, and my gut says they will. You need to come with me, at least until this is over. I promise I’ll protect you. No one can do it better than I can.”

Biting her lip, she hesitated, torn. He actually had a good point with that. She was almost a hundred percent positive that one of them, at least, had recognized her as the waitress from the diner. It was possible that they took turns paying at different places to try to avoid anyone recognizing them, but they probably didn’t count on visiting two different places with the same staff.

And maybe the only reason they hadn’t already done anything about it was because it was daytime and there were too many potential witnesses around. They could plan on coming back after dark, or maybe they were still lurking, waiting on her to get off work so they could follow her home.

Either way, her gut said the same thing his did—they weren’t done with her.

Shuddering, she wrapped her arms around herself as she gazed at Colton. “Maybe you have a point with that, but I’m not sure it’s any safer to go off with a virtual stranger, either.”

His mouth kicked up on one side. “If you have someone you can go to who’s not related to you, that they won’t be able to track you to, you’re welcome to go there instead of coming with me. But I really do think you shouldn’t come back to work at either job until this is over.”

Sighing, she shook her head. “There’s no one except my uncle, and everyone knows I’m his niece. Besides, I live here at the hotel and so does he, so whether I work or not, I’ll still be here.”

“All the more reason for you to come with me, then. You definitely can’t sleep here with them knowing where to find you. I’d never hurt you, Katia. You have my word on that. You can also give my full name and address—hell, even my license plate number and a description of my truck—to anyone of your choosing. That way you’ll have someone who knows exactly who you’re with. But we need to hurry. We’ve already been here too long, and I really don’t like that they know your name, what you look like, and where you work.”

She didn’t like it either, and that was finally what made up her mind. “Okay, but I’m giving my uncle all your information, and if anything happens to me, I’m gonna haunt your ass until he catches up to you and kills you himself.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a half-smile. “Now go call whoever you need to so you can get your shift covered, but make sure they know to get here fast, because we’re not sticking around to wait on them. Pack a bag, and once I’m done in here, I’ll pack mine and we can meet in the lobby.”

Nodding, she turned to go, pausing to look back at him. “You really should call the police, though. They can identify that finger and hopefully give you some answers about who it belongs to.”