I shift uncomfortably, not sure that I like how clearly she can see me now that she’s not hysterical with fright. “You sure went from kidnap victim to shrink quickly,” I deflect.
“Yeah, well, I’ve had lots of practice.”
There’s something about the way she says it that strikes a chord in me, that makes me wonder which of the two roles she’s claiming to be familiar with. Because this isn’t the first time she’s alluded to being held against her will, and the way she fought in the garage—with a fierceness that was born of absolute terror and absolute determination—makes me wonder just what happened to her in the past. Even as it makes me furious that I’m the one responsible for terrorizing her this time around.
Fucking Anderson has a whole shit-ton to answer for.
I glance at the clock, realize forty-five minutes have passed since we got here and so far, no one has found anything out of the ordinary. It makes me twitchy, makes me itch to get over there and get my hands dirty as I look, too. But doing that means leaving Jordan over here alone, and I’m still not convinced that’s a good idea. For us or for her.
An awkward silence falls after her admission, guilt making it hard for me to look at her as I turn her words over in my mind again and again and again. I keep hoping to reach a different conclusion, keep hoping that I’m wrong to think she’s been through something awful in the past. But when you put the pieces together, nothing else makes sense.
The knowledge only adds to my rage, to the hatred I feel for Anderson and the self-loathing I’ve felt ever since Jordan freaked out in that parking garage. This whole situation is a clusterfuck, one that’s guaranteed to screw us all over before it’s done.
That is, unless my hunch pays off and we actually find something in that car that will help us fuck Anderson over instead…
Suddenly Jordan’s stomach growls. Loudly. So that’s awesome, too. In the space of an hour and a half, I’ve stolen her car, kidnapped her, knocked her to the ground, tied her up, and starved her.
I’m such a gentleman.
Catching Lena’s eye through the window, I wave for her to come into the garage—which she does immediately, Benji trailing behind her. And there’s another bubble of guilt right there, just in case I don’t feel shitty enough already. She’s a great mom—a really great mom—yet she’s terrified she’s going to lose her kid because Anderson wants to fuck with me.
I’ve never wanted to kill anyone before in my life, but if I thought I could get away with it, I’d beat the bastard to death with my bare hands and not feel even an ounce of remorse.
“What’s up, Nic?” Lena asks, looking between Jordan and me.
“Jordan, this is my sister, Lena, and her son, Benji. Lena, this is Jordan. She’s the owner of the car we’re currently breaking into little pieces over there.”
Lena’s eyes widen and she pulls Benji against her side, like she’s afraid just the mention of the situation will somehow rip him away from her. Damn Anderson and his bullshit. She’s worked too hard to build a life for him, too hard to build a life for herself, for that asshole to come in and threaten it just because he can.
“I’m so sorry about this,” Lena tells Jordan, all but tripping over the words in her haste to get them out of her mouth. “If there was any other option or it was any other situation, but Benji, you know? I—”
“Actually,” I cut my sister off before she can spill the whole sordid story, “I called you out here because I was hoping you could run across the street and get something for Jordan to eat. She’s hungry and—”
“I’m fine,” Jordan insists, even as her stomach growls a second time.
“You’re not,” I tell her, as I pull out my wallet and hand Lena some money. “They make great carne asada tacos, and their chicken burritos are pretty good, too. I don’t know what you like…”
“Umm, the tacos are fine, I guess. Thanks.” She looks totally befuddled, though.
“What’s wrong?” I ask after Lena and Benji head out. “You look confused.”
“It’s just…you steal my car and then you buy me lunch. It’s a weird dichotomy, you know? I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“Well, I guess I won’t disagree there,” she says with a snort. Then she falls silent for a few seconds before asking, “What did Lena mean? About this being the only way. The only way for what?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You keep saying that, but it does matter or I wouldn’t be here. Besides, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on. You might as well fill in the last blanks.”
I’m not sure I agree, but the way she’s looking at me says she won’t be put off for much longer. And I am the one who dragged her into this mess—the least I can do is let her know what she’s dealing with. What Anderson is capable of.
“He’s a bastard, Jordan. He threatened to get Benji taken away from Lena if I don’t do this for him. The kid’s a skateboarder so he’s been to the emergency room a couple of times in the last few months after falling off his board. Anderson threatened to pull strings and have him taken away. That would kill my sister. He’s her whole life.”
She looks sick. “But he can’t do that. Surely you could prove—”
“You don’t get it. Proof doesn’t matter, not with this guy. He’s capable of anything and if he thinks it will get him what he wants—with the added side bonus of fucking me over—he’ll do it in a heartbeat.”
“Can’t you stop him? Can’t you go to the police and…” Her voice trails off, like even she recognizes the absurdity of an ex-con expecting the cops to stand with him against one of their own. “Or maybe—”
“Look, now that I told you, you need to do something for me.” She’s got this there-has-to-be-a-way-to-fix-this look on her face and it makes me very, very nervous.
“I need to do something for you?”
“Yes.” I look her square in the eyes. “I know that sounds ridiculous considering the circumstances, but it’s important.”
She turns solemn when she realizes just how seriously I take this. “Okay.”
I hold her gaze for a few extra seconds, wanting to make sure she understands how grave the situation is, how big the mess is that I’ve dragged her into. When I’m convinced she gets it, I finally tell her, “You need to forget the cop’s name.”
“You mean Anderson?”
“Fuck, yes, that’s what I mean. I never want to hear you say that name again, okay? You need to forget you’ve ever heard it. You need to forget he even exists.”
She starts to say something, but I cut her off. “I mean it, Jordan. You can’t slip up when you’re reporting this to the insurance or the police. He’s a bastard, Jordan, and as corrupt as they come. He got me sent to prison once and he’ll do the same—or worse—to you, if he thinks you’re a threat.”
“I’m not scared of a dirty cop.”
“You should be of this one.”
“But I’m not the one who’s done anything wrong.”
“You think that matters? He’ll only be more vicious, more determined to shut you up if he doesn’t have anything to hold over your head. Promise me, when I drop you off tonight, you’ll forget all about this. Or at least pretend to forget about it.”
She looks like she wants to argue some more, but in the end, she says, “Fine. I swear I won’t mention his name to anyone. Okay?”
Not really, but I’ll make it okay. Anderson’s already taken his shot at me, and at my family. There’s no way I’m going to let him draw Jordan in, too. Not when the only thing she’s guilty of is buying the wrong car at the wrong time.
“But, Nic,” she asks after a second, “won’t he just keep blackmailing you? Getting you to do his dirty work for him?”
“Not if I find a way to make him stop,” I tell her. “And I will find a way. I only agreed to do this so I’d get a shot at your car.”
“So you can
find whatever he wants.”
It’s not a question, but I answer her anyway. “Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Then I do whatever it takes to bring him down, once and for all.”
She starts to say something else, but before she can do more than open her mouth, Jace shouts, “I think I’ve got something.”
Chapter 7
Jordan
The second the guy at the computer announces that he’s found something, Nic’s across the room. The rest of his crew follows, crowding around the two of them—and so do I.
Of course I do, because sometime in the last two hours I’ve gone from being a terrified kidnap victim to an enraged semi-accomplice. I’m still not sure how it happened, considering it wasn’t that long ago that I tried to jump out of a moving vehicle to get away from Nic, but here I am now, buying his story hook, line, and sinker. I’m even ready to sacrifice my car to the cause, and I really need my car. But now every time I think about going to the police, about reporting this whole mess, I see Benji’s dark curls and big green eyes. The idea of him being ripped away from his mother—from his family—because of some crooked cop horrifies me.
And then there’s Nic, who’s caught between a rock and a hard place—between the life he used to lead and the one he’s trying to build for himself.
Nic, who has gone out of his way to make okay what could have been—should have been—a nightmare.
Nic, who kidnaps me and somehow still manages to make me hot just by looking at me. Just by existing.
It doesn’t make sense, but then nothing about this day makes sense. I’m half convinced I’m going to wake up at any moment, only to find out that all of this has been a dream. And if it’s not…if it’s not, embracing the insanity of this trip down the rabbit hole might be my only way to stay sane at this point.
“What is it, Jace?” the newest addition to the garage crew—a tall guy with a shaved head and two full sleeves of tattoos—demands. Heath, I think I heard someone call him.
Jace has moved away from the car and is now hunched over a laptop, his fingers flying across the keyboard as line after line of unintelligible code scrawls across the screen. “I don’t know yet.”
“Then how do you know you’ve found anything?” Payton demands. “You could be looking at the engine diagnostic coding for all you know.”
“I’ve already seen the engine diagnostic code,” Jace answers her as he continues to scroll through what looks like a bunch of gibberish. “And trust me, this is not it. None of the programs loaded into the onboard computer by the manufacturer look anything like this.”
“How long before you know what this is?” Nic demands from his spot directly behind Jace.
“I don’t know. It’s encrypted with something—I’ve got to break the encryption before I can get a look at the information.”
“How long is that going to take?” Payton asks.
“It’s going to take as long as it takes,” Jace snaps at her. “I’m not a miracle worker, you know.”
“Wow, someone’s touchy,” Payton murmurs, backing off.
“Don’t take it personally,” the big, “cuddly” one tells her. “Jace has performance anxiety.”
“Fuck you, Martinez.” It’s said without any heat as Jace’s fingers continue to fly over the keyboard.
We all spend the next couple of minutes staring over his shoulder before Nic figures out that it’s a waste of time. “Get back to stripping the car. Just in case this is nothing—”
“It’s not nothing,” Jace tells him as the others wander away. “This is definitely what you’re looking for.”
“You sure about that?” Nic asks, dropping a hand on Jace’s shoulder. “Because if you’re wrong—”
“I’m not wrong. This is top-of-the-line encryption I’m dealing with right here. There’s no fucking way Nissan did this. This is what you’re looking for.”
“Okay.” He turns back to the rest of his crew. “Start getting the car put back together. I’ve got less than two hours to get it back to Anderson.”
“Already on it, man.” This from the tall, elegant guy with the long brown hair who’s spent the last hour taking my doors apart.
“Thanks, Sean.”
For long seconds, Nic doesn’t say anything more—and neither does anyone else. I have to admit, I’m a little amazed at the dynamic in here. Oh, not at the way they listen to Nic—it’s more than obvious that he’s the leader here, that he has the respect of everyone standing in this room. But the fact that they’re willing to trust Jace so completely when all he has is a hunch on some code that he says doesn’t belong tells me more about the dynamics at work here than anything else could.
They aren’t trusting Jace only because Nic said so—they started putting the car back together pretty much as soon as Jace said he had something. Almost no questions asked and no doubts expressed whatsoever.
I wonder what that’s like. To have that kind of friendship, that kind of trust in someone. It’s been so long since I’ve trusted anyone that I pretty much can’t fathom it. Sure, Vi’s my closest friend here in San Diego, but that pretty much means we do things together once or twice a week. Go to the beach, the movies, maybe even a club once in a while, though she usually does that with her other friends since I’m not quite the party girl she is.
Oh, she tells me her boy problems and I give what is probably terrible advice on how to fix things, but that’s about as far as our friendship goes. Probably because that’s as far as I’ve ever let it go.
Trust is hard. Having faith in someone is even harder. And yet that’s what these people have in Jace, in Nic. In each other.
For a second, just a second, the longing to be a part of it rises up in me so strongly that my heart actually stutters in my chest. I want someone I can count on like that, someone who can count on me.
I want it desperately.
Nic glances at me for a second, then does a double take. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, straightening from where he was leaning against the desk.
“I’m fine. Just…tired.”
It’s a lame answer and a lamer excuse, but he must buy it, because his face falls. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be much longer.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, even though it isn’t. Even though the need to get out of here is suddenly a rabid beast within me. I can deal with the fear, deal with the anger, but the concern I see in his eyes when he looks at me is another thing altogether. As is the sudden need I have to give in to that concern. The sudden desperate loneliness that has just hit me like a ton of bricks.
“You sure?” He reaches out to put a hand on my back, but freezes before he actually touches me. I know it’s because the last time he touched me I racked him and I don’t blame him for not wanting me to freak out again. But I miss its absence keenly.
It doesn’t make sense, but then, nothing about this day makes any sense at all.
“Yeah,” I choke out, turning my head away from him to hide the sudden burn of tears in my eyes.
He sees them, though—I’m beginning to think that Nic sees everything—because suddenly he’s right there in front of me, his face inches from mine. His eyes are a softer green as they search my expression, more moss than laser.
“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs softly. “I promise. You’ll be back where you belong, safe and sound, in just a little while.”
That’s the problem—I don’t belong anywhere. I haven’t in so long that I can’t even remember what it feels like. It never used to bother me, but standing here, seeing what I’m missing, it suddenly does. A lot.
But I can’t tell him that. It makes me sound like a basket case. Not to mention completely pathetic. I have no reason to want to stay here in the middle of this mess, no reason not to want to go back to my life. Except him.
He’s still not touching me and I move forward a little, just until my shoulder bumps his. Immediately, I’m flooded by his warmth and it feels good. Too go
od.
Stockholm syndrome, anyone?
Except I don’t really feel like his captive anymore, not when I know that he’s going to be dropping me home very soon. And then I’ll never see him again, never see any of these people again.
That shouldn’t make me sad, but it does.
Nic’s face changes again, the concern flashing to tenderness and something else…something I can’t quite recognize. It’s gone as fast as it appeared, though, and then he’s resting a hand on my shoulder as he guides me back to the chairs.
“Jordan, I—”
“Lunch is here,” Lena calls, as she walks in through one of the open bay doors.
I wait for Nic to continue with whatever he was going to say, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just shakes his head and reaches for the bag his sister holds out to him. Despite my disappointment at being interrupted, I can’t help noticing how good it smells. My stomach growls again, even more loudly than before.
Lena glares at her brother as he hands me the food. “You don’t actually expect her to eat out here in the garage, do you?” She grabs on to my elbow, tugs me to my feet. “Come on, there’s a break room off the lobby. I’ll take you there.”
“Lena,” Nic says warningly.
“What? It’s ridiculous,” she tells him. “The garage is smelly and filled with all kinds of things that can poison a person.”
“That’s not the point. What if she—”
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Lena says with a roll of her eyes. “She can eat with Benji.”
And there it is. The proof that I’m the only one feeling mixed up about this situation. Nic knows exactly who I am, exactly what both our roles are. I’m the only one who’s confusing them.
God, I really am pathetic.
I follow Lena through the door into the shop’s main lobby, resisting the urge to look back at Nic as I do. But I can feel his eyes on me, can feel them practically burning a hole in my back as I walk away. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. I don’t know.
Lena leads me to the break room, and as she pushes open the door, I can’t help gaping at it in astonishment. Because it’s like no break room I’ve ever seen before. It’s got a huge table in the center of the room, with ten chairs around it—which is pretty normal, I guess. But that’s the only normal thing about it.