So one guy. And a gun.
I can handle this. But I have to wait until that gun muzzle moves away from my female. The asshole opens the trunk and shoves her in. I wait until he shuts the trunk and walks around to the driver’s side to let loose a snarl.
He does a double take when he sees me, lifts his gun to point, then changes his mind and opens the car door instead.
He’s too late. My front paws land on his shoulders, and he’s thrown back into the door. The gun falls to the ground. I have to hold back to keep from killing him—that instinct taking over so strongly it’s hard to even think straight. But getting Sloane out of here is the priority.
And I have a getaway vehicle already running and waiting. So I sink my teeth into his shoulder as I knock him to the ground. Then I release him, making a show of growling and tearing his clothes like I’m rabid so he crab walks backward. A string of curses come out of his mouth in some language I don’t understand. Not Italian. Maybe Russian.
I drive him further back, banking on the innate human fear of wolves to block any quick thinking on his part, and then I turn and launch myself into the driver’s seat. I shift as I land—my fingers already stretched out to shut the door, my foot on the gas. I duck to keep him from seeing my face or shooting us and I take off, praying he won’t have time to pick up his gun and fire into the trunk before we round the bend.
I whip through the wide industrial streets at ninety miles an hour. I don’t see a tail, but I want to hide this car and get my girl out of the fucking trunk.
And get my clothes.
That thought makes me hang the next left and cruise right back to the place I got shot. I hide the car on the side of the warehouse and leap out.
“Sloane,” I intone sharply, the second I hit the trunk opener and tumble out of the car.
“Bo?” Her voice is incredulous.
I yank the bag off her head and snap the ziptie around her wrists with one of my canines.
“Oh my God! I heard something, but I didn’t know what the fuck was happening!” She scrambles up, and I get a look at her face, which sports a bruise the size of New Hampshire on one cheek.
I snarl, almost shifting again, and she flinches.
“Sorry,” I give my head a hard shake, like it will shake the aggression right out of me. “Your face—fuck.”
She throws her arms around my neck in a strangulating hold. I squeeze her, too, lifting her feet off the ground and burying my face in her hair. “Bo.”
She’s crying.
I squeeze tighter.
“I am madly in love with you.” Her words whoosh inside me and fill every crack and crevice. She releases me. “You got shot. And we gotta get you some clothes.”
“Right here.” I grab my clothes from behind the dumpster and put them on.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.” She’s crying again.
I thumb away her tears, careful with the bruised side. “It’s ok. It’s okay, beautiful. You’re mine now.”
She blinks those reddish-brown eyes at me and leans in, laying her head softly against my chest. It’s such a tender gesture. A soft, sweetness. So unlike what we’ve been with each other. I bookmark the moment because it feels like something important.
The first time she’s really given herself to me. All of her.
I put my arm around her and lead her away from the warehouse. Away from the place I almost lost her. “Come on. I have to show you something.”
Sloane
It’s totally surreal. Bo and I are standing hand in hand in across from my old middle school in front of an EZ storage. He filled me in on his fantastical part of the story on the walk. Don Salvatore has his money. He doesn’t have me, but as far as he knows, someone kidnapped me in the back of car following a wolf attack. He had already sold me to the Russian anyway, so I don’t think he’ll come looking for me again.
We figure we have a good chance of walking away from all this relatively unscathed.
“Your dad wrote to tell you if anything happened to you, to check a storage unit in here.” Bo holds up my key ring—the one with the key to my bike lock. “The key was on here.”
I shake my head. “Jesus. I had no idea.”
He grins. “Yeah. Wanna see what else is in there?”
The corners of her lips turn up—she sees my excitement. “Definitely.”
Bo unlocks the unit. “He put this in your name, only misspelled, so the Feds never found it to seize these assets. Smart man.”