“Trav, are you still in contact with Ghost?” I ask. “He’s gone quiet on the—”
“I’m here,” Ghost says.
“Do you have a location on all of Danyal’s men?”
“None of them have left that I have seen on surveillance, but I also don’t know where one of the guards are. One has opened his laptop, and Danyal has been on his phone pretty much since you left to a phone number that’s linked to a burner phone, but there’s nothing alarming popping up.”
“I’m going to see if I can shake him.” I change lanes again, and the SUV doesn’t follow.
Until it does.
We hit the on-ramp to the freeway, and suddenly it’s behind us, gaining ground.
Saint gets the full license plate off to Trav, and then a minute later, Trav swears under his breath.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Government-issued car.”
“Do you think this is Danyal related or Rodriguez related?” I ask.
“It’s not fucking Rodriguez,” Trav growls.
Saint turns in his seat to try to get a better view of the driver, but the car is staying back enough that we can’t make out any of their features. “Maybe Danyal is working with the government and helping to capture his father. He’d have government detail for that, wouldn’t he? Do we know any of his bodyguards and who they work for?”
“Our surveillance photos have been going through facial recognition software,” Ghost says. “So far, nothing, though.”
I maneuver the car between eight lanes of traffic, putting as much distance between us and the SUV as possible.
We head farther away from Santa Monica, heading east toward headquarters, but we have to ditch this tail long before then.
“Pull up Maps,” I say to Saint. “We need a built-up area, but something close to an exit so we can immediately lose them and not get stuck in traffic.”
“Downtown LA,” Saint says. “There’s an exit …” He zooms in on his phone. “Three miles away.”
“What’s traffic like?”
“Heavy, but no more than usual. I say get off and find the nearest parking garage.”
“Except if they see us, then we’re trapped inside a parking garage.”
Saint glances in my direction with amusement and challenge in his eye. “Don’t think you can shake them? Maybe I should’ve driven.”
“I’m so glad you’re back to your normal self,” I say dryly.
“Take this exit and turn right as soon as you’re off.”
“Okay, let’s do this.”
I wait until we get closer to the exit before cutting across and flying up the off-ramp. “Did they follow?” I can’t take my eyes off the road because I’m going way too fast as I take the right turn he was talking about.
Saint turns in his seat, frantically searching. “I can’t see them.”
“Where am I going?” I ask him.
“Take a left.”
“Where?” I yell.
“Now.” He points. “This one, this one, this one.”
“Fuck!” I almost miss it but turn at the last second. The wheels lock, and the car drifts into the far-right lane. We’re lucky I didn’t roll this thing.
Saint grips the dash and the oh shit handle. “I didn’t even know a Range Rover could drift.”
“It can’t. I’m that talented.”
“Are you talented enough to get over so we can park in this garage up here?” He points to a building on the left.
“You’re almost as bad as Atlas with your directions.”
“Lies. You’re just bad at driving.”
“Can you two save the bitter married couple routine for after you’ve lost your tail?” Trav says in my ear. I’d forgotten he was there.
“Can you see them behind us?” I ask Saint.
Saint turns again. “I can’t see shit.”
This is the moment, then. The make or break. They’re either behind us or still on the freeway, and it’s impossible to tell. I cut across more traffic and take a sharp turn into the garage entrance.
The ticket machine is at least a decent distance inside, so we’re not exposed if the car catches up to our location.
“Come on, come on, come on.” It takes a billion years for it to spit out a ticket, but when it finally does, I put my foot down and shoot up the ramp, going straight to the floor one below the rooftop.
I reverse park into a spot so the front sticks out and we can make an escape if we need to.
My body trembles with the amount of adrenaline pumping through me.
“Anything?” Trav says in my ear.
“Nothing.”
“Think you lost them?”
“Too early to tell.” We keep our eyes locked on the ramp. The garage is nearly empty, with only a few cars on this level, and seconds seem to last minutes.
“How long do we wait?” Saint asks.
“We have two options. We sit and wait it out. Or we risk getting out, taking the time to get rid of our plates and switch them out so if they do find the car, they won’t think it’s ours, and then we walk out of here and come back for the Range Rover later.”