I don’t even know who we’re running from.
I want to ask him where we’re going, who’s after us, and what exactly he thinks I did.
But I’m… still wallowing in the knowledge that Gray used me. Deep in my gut there’s one thing I know: the professions of love were fake. Gray used me because of who I am. He knows I gave up everything in my life for nothing, and he doesn’t care. He tried to blame me back in the restaurant.
The look on Dario’s face when he did… but no, I won’t think of that now.
“Motherfucker,” Dario says under his breath.
Gray laughs mirthlessly behind us, and I hate him for it. Hate him. He tried to frame me, used me, and likely set me up.
I hope Dario gets another chance to hit him. He’d be a lot more thorough about it than I would. I liked Gray because he was nothing like the men I grew up with—softer, gentler, without the crass edge of violence about him.
“You thought you could get away from them,” Gray says.
Them. Them?
Dario glares, the heat of his gaze making me cower against the back of my seat, and he isn’t even looking at me. I don’t know how Gray doesn’t disintegrate in the power of that glare.
“The fuck are you hiding?”
“They’re gonna take you. They’re gonna torture you. They’ll find out what they need, and then they’ll get rid of you. That’s how they work, and you know it.” He looks desperate, his eyes wide, while his lips turn upward in a sick smile. He’s out of his mind.
“You talk in riddles, asshole,” Dario growls. “Real men use big boy words.” He talks to him as if dressing down a child. Despite the danger we’re in, despite my hurt and anger and fear, I’m tempted to smile. He’s taken the upper hand with Gray in a matter of seconds, and it feels like poetic justice.
Dario curses under his breath.
My belly drops when Dario hits the accelerator even harder. He’s obviously not someone who’s easily ruffled, so his rising anger concerns me. Someone’s coming for us, and fast, and we don’t have the benefit of a solid guard at our backs this time.
The traffic hasn’t died down on the highway, so he’s jetting from one side road to the next, not an easy feat on the narrow, often one-way streets of downtown Boston. I don’t know where we’re going or why, but I can only surmise that we’re in a shit ton of trouble.
This is someone Gray knows. Fears, even.
“You might as well tell us, Gray,” I say quietly, trying another tactic. “If someone comes after us, we’re all gonna die.”
“I know,” Gray says, and suddenly he isn’t smiling anymore. His eyes are wide and frantic as they dart around the interior of the car. Suddenly, he grabs for the door handle with his cuffed wrists. I scream. I can’t help it. We must be driving eighty miles an hour, and if he pushed himself out of this car, he’d splatter on the pavement like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper.
“As if I’d leave the fuckin’ door unlocked,” Dario says, shaking his head. He’s put the child safety locks on. “You stupid son of a bitch. You that scared of being taken hostage?”
“You have no idea,” Gray says, his voice thin and afraid. “You have no idea what they’re capable of.”
“Who?” I flinch at the sound of Dario’s voice, so harsh and raw it’s like a slap on bare skin.
A gunshot rings out. The car spins haphazardly. Dario curses but doesn’t lose his grip on the steering wheel or his near perfect control. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he scowls. His voice is a low command without a trace of fear.
“Take the gun out of the glove compartment.”
Gun. Take the gun out.
So those are words you’d never hear come out of my brothers’ mouths.
Uh, okay…
He narrows his eyes, his face tight. “Tell me Sergio or someone taught you how to shoot.”
I shake my head. I feel so… useless. I wasn’t even allowed to touch a gun. I can barely hit someone with a damn water pistol at a pool party. “I… I don’t shoot.”
“Of course not,” he mutters. “Always had someone to defend your back, didn’t you? Fuck it.”