Chapter Twenty-Three

Billy was standing outside of his car, smoking and glancing at his watch. I watched him light one cigarette off the other, then tense up as the sound of an engine cut through the otherwise still air. So far three cars had come and gone, driving past the nearly invisible turnoff without slowing.

This one was different.

The rumble of tires on gravel got closer, and a black Jeep came cruising around the corner at well above the speed limit. It spun to a stop right in front of us, and John hopped out.

He went straight to Billy, and spoke to him in a low voice. I couldn’t hear them, but it looked like they were arguing. Billy tossed his cigarette down and ground it out aggressively before stalking to the car and yanking my door open.

“Out,” he said in an audibly angry voice. “Get in the Jeep.”

I obeyed without speaking. The intensity of the situation and the violence I’d experienced, earlier coupled with the horrific outcome, was starting to wear on me.

I climbed into the raised up vehicle, and did up my seatbelt. I saw my suitcase was in the back seat.

John said a few final words to Billy, and strapped himself into the driver’s seat without looking at me. He put the Jeep in gear and peeled away without looking back.

His face was dark as he drove, and even in the muted twilight, I could see that all the lines of his body were tense with anger.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked hesitantly.

He was staring out the windshield with his eyes narrowed, and the sound of my voice made him jump. I watched him try to control his expression.

“Talk about what?” he replied in a strained voice.

“Anything,” I offered.

“Where do you want to start? With what was done to…” he swallowed thickly. “The girls at the warehouse? With you being tied up and locked up right under my nose?”

His tone made me cringe.

He made a sudden turn, and I was thankful for my seatbelt as we hit a patch of loose gravel and the tires spun. John pretended not to notice the momentary loss of control. He held the steering wheel straight and maneuvered the Jeep up the increasingly dark road.

“You want to know why I saved you from Monato?” he asked in a harsh voice.

He took another quick turn, and I yelped a bit as I cracked my head on the side window. John braked, then lurched to a stop.

“Cass, I’m sorry,” he said.

He sounded as regretful as he did furious.

“I’m all right,” I replied.

He put his head down on the steering wheel, and I saw the anger leave his body.

“I seem to have forgotten how to have a normal...conversation,” he told me.

For some reason, I had been expecting him to finish his sentence with the word relationship and my heart fluttered nervously.

“Cass, I was wrong,” John said. “I can’t be responsible for you. I shouldn’t have assumed I could.”

I reached out and put my hand on his arm. I was surprised a bit by his sudden and apparent vulnerability. He tensed again for a second as my skin met his, and then his shoulders fell again. My heart lurched in my chest, and I wished immediately that I was the one doing the protecting.

“For God’s sake. This was supposed to be a test,” he said. “And I practically got you killed. I thought I was keeping you safe, but I’m just making things worse. No one even knew I was coming to that meeting. I hadn’t even told Leo.”

“Someone is telling Monato where you’ll be,” I stated.

“What?”

“Gary, that money guy, he said something about you tracking Monato’s every move,” I told him. “What if he’s tracking you, too?”

“You’re probably right,” he said, and it sounded more like definitely than probably.

For a second, he looked like he was going to say something else, but he just slammed his hand against the dashboard and pulled out his phone. He typed in a furious text, then turned back to me. His eyes were defeated.

“I don’t seem to be doing anything right.”

“What if you had just let Monato have me in the first place?” I asked gently. “Would that have been better?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Aren’t you the one who told me he was in the business of trading women as a commodity?”

“He might not have tried to kill you if I hadn’t got involved.”

“There are things that are worse than being killed. And I’d rather be a part of a hundred of your failed tests than be involved with that man for one second,” I told him.

“You sound so sure,” he said, and there was a desperation in his voice that made my heart ache once again.

“Absolutely,” I replied.

“All right,” he said, sounding relieved, if not convinced.

He put the Jeep into drive again and when he pulled out a little more cautiously onto the road, I finally recognized the terrain.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, even though I thought I might already know.