He shoved me into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind me. I’d barely gotten my seatbelt clipped in when he jumped into the car, started the engine, and squealed out of there like a bat out of hell.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my shaking hands running down my thighs. I needed to get ahold of myself and think this through logically. Hut wanted me to go with him to see Carson, which meant this was a meeting. The guys weren’t here, so were they already there? Had Carson asked to see me?
My
heart stomped an erratic beat in my chest the longer Hut stayed silent, and I realized he wasn’t going to answer me. Just because he needed me there, didn’t mean he’d communicate where there was.
Hut’s movements were jerky, clearly showcasing he didn’t drive often. I nearly scoffed at my own thoughts. Of course he didn’t drive. He liked to pretend he was president with his own personal driver and bodyguard.
We pulled into a parking lot in front of a bar, and I searched around us, trying to take everything in. I’d never been in this part of town before, and I had no idea what waited for me behind those doors.
Hut still didn’t talk as he dragged me out of the car and to the bar, but he halted just outside the doors. “You play nice, and maybe you won’t end up dead by the end of the night.”
I could see how much he meant those words by the burning in his eyes, so I nodded and pulled up to my full height, pushing my shoulders back as I did. There was a time to refuse, and a time to preserve. This was the latter. I didn’t want my life to be taken away by these men who thought they controlled everything. I’d sit in this meeting, do what I had to do, and bide my time.
Hut’s hand gripped my forearm, and he pulled me through the doors, but this time it was softer, like he was trying to show people I was here of my own free will. He made his way past the bar, not stopping until we were in a back corner on our own.
The door to the bar opened again, and a couple of guys came in, obviously having had a few beers already from the way they stumbled and laughed. I kept my eyes on them until they were at the bar, and just as I went to look away, one of them caught my gaze. His lips were in a flat line, and something flashed, but it was gone a second later, almost as if I’d imagined it.
I was so caught up in taking everyone in, that I hadn’t realized Carson had sat down until his hand landed on my thigh.
“Hey there, pretty lady.”
I sucked in a breath, my gaze sliding back to the two guys at the bar. It wasn’t like they were going to get me out of this situation. I had to grin and bear it. Hadn’t I told Brody only a couple of mornings ago that I didn’t need someone to save me? No, I could do that all by myself, no matter what I had to do in order to get there.
A deep breath rattled through my chest, and I looked back at Carson, doing my best to smile.
“Hi, Carson.”
* * *
BRODY
“Hut’s on the move,” Jord growled down the line. It wasn’t the words that had me pushing up off my sofa, but the way he said them.
I hadn’t had a chance to see any of the guys in the last week, only brief conversations, which meant I still didn’t know what had happened with Ford and whether they’d flipped him.
“What? What do you mean he’s on the move?”
Jord sighed over the line. “He’s on the move with only one person in tow—the sister. Just the two of them.”
“Fuck!” I was out of my apartment in seconds, jogging down the stairs and to my car. “Why isn’t Ford with them?”
“That’s what we’re wondering,” Jord said. Ever since Hut had found out someone was skimming his product, he’d been different, on edge, not himself. Hut was dangerous at the best of times, but this was a whole new level.
“He doesn’t trust any of us,” I told him, jumping into my car and turning the engine on. “I need his tracker.” Jord beeped something through to the system in the car, and I followed the blinking dot on the screen of the navigation system. Jord informed me that Kyle and Ryan were following them, but that didn’t mean I was going to sit in my apartment while Hut had taken Lola somewhere. I put my cell on speaker and peeled out of the lot.
In the back of my mind, I wondered briefly if she’d been playing me, but the words when she told me she wanted out of that house were too raw to be fake. Add that to the fact Hut hadn’t told any of us where he was going with her, then this definitely wasn’t good.
“We need a meeting,” I growled down the line. “As soon as we know what’s happening, we all meet at the house. We’ve gone too long without one.”
“Damn fuckin' straight we have.” The line went dead, and I slowed down as I got closer to the blinking dot.
My fist pounded on the steering wheel when I saw his SUV in the lot of Carson’s bar. He’d kept us in the dark on purpose. I pulled into a space at the back of the lot, letting the night envelop me, but as soon as I turned the engine off, my cell beeped with another incoming call.
“Brody,” I barked down the line.
“They’re heading inside,” Jord said. “I thought you’d want to hear what’s going on.”