Wilde Security 4 Running Wilde Tonya Burrows

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facing the authorities.
She was feisty, strong, and more than capable of taking care of herself in a world that hadn t
seemed to give her a break, but a murderer? He couldn t reconcile that with the sweet, slightly
troubled woman he d known. Of course, the woman currently sitting next to him wasn t the same one
he d known, either. She was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and she was giving him a headache
without even opening her mouth.
He was going to drive himself crazy trying to figure her out, so he shoved her out of his thoughts
and tried to focus on& something else.
Anything else.
Unfortunately, the only other thing that came to mind was the call from Giuseppe Bellisario.
The call had all of his nerves jangling. Bellisario wasn t going to give up until Vaughn did what the
guy wanted, and if he kept refusing, things were bound to get ugly.
Hell, who was he trying to kid? It was already ugly. Bellisario had resorted to threats, and he was
terrified his brothers might get caught up in this disaster.
Headlights flashed in his rearview mirror, too bright and too close for comfort. He glanced over
his shoulder a large SUV was barreling down on them. He switched lanes to get out of their way,
but the SUV followed, riding his bumper even though there was no other traffic on the road. A knot
tightened in his gut, and he stepped on the gas. The car bolted forward.
Sage jolted upright in her seat. What are you doing?
We have a tail.
She spun, stared out the back windshield, and her eyes widened. They re not being very stealthy
about it.
That s because they want us to know.
In the bright white of the other vehicle s headlights, he clearly saw the color drop out of her
complexion. They found me.
He didn t think so. More likely, this was Bellisario making a point, since he obviously had Vaughn
followed. Still, it d help to know who was after her in case he was wrong. Who found you? Who are
you running from?
I-I can t She covered her mouth with one shaking hand and shook her head. Please, Vaughn.
Don t let them take me. Leaking tears, she met his gaze with true terror shining in her eyes. He didn t
think she could fake that level of fear, and he was completely powerless against it.
Fuck, he muttered and jammed his foot harder on the gas. There was no possible way for them to
outrun the SUV in this car not enough power under the hood but they might be able to hide. All he
needed was to put some distance between them and find an exit&
There.
The exit let off into the trees surrounding the highway, and there didn t seem to be civilization
anywhere in sight. He turned too fast onto the ramp at the very last second, and the car rocked. Sage
didn t make a peep of alarm, but she was white-knuckling the oh shit handle above the door.
On the highway behind them, the SUV screeched to a halt. He checked the mirror the SUV was
reversing to the exit ramp. An oncoming Mack truck would be very helpful right now, but no such
luck. The highway was completely empty at this time of night.
Hang on. Vaughn ignored the stop sign as he swung into a right turn at the top of the ramp. The car
whined at its mistreatment but stayed upright and didn t die on him.
He turned onto the first dark road he spotted, drove out of sight of the main road, stopped on the
shoulder, and shut everything off. Darkness folded around them, and with it came silence, save for the
ticking of the cooling engine and Sage s ragged breathing.
Hey. He groped around until he found her hand gripping the edge of her seat. He peeled her
fingers off the leather and gave them a reassuring squeeze. Hey, there s no way they made it up the
ramp in time to see us turn. They re not gonna find us. We just have to wait them out.
She didn t move or say anything for several moments until her breathing finally slowed and evened
out. She shifted away, tugging her hand free. Thank you.
He gave her another second to finish pulling herself back together. You want to tell me what that
was about?
No.
Didn t figure.
She sniffled, and he heard a shaky smile in her voice. Nice driving, though.
Yeah, the Navy taught me a few things.
She shifted in her seat and finally let go of the grab handle. Before tonight, I guess I never really
knew you were in the military.
Twelve years. Four as a rescue swimmer, eight as a SEAL.
The SEALs are the badasses, right?
We like to think so. He smiled into the darkness. But, yeah, we re the best at what we do.
She was silent for another beat. Have you been out long?
A couple years now.
Why did you leave?
He figured her questions were a coping mechanism, a way to take her mind off the fear-adrenaline
cocktail currently overloading her system, but he wasn t about to go into all the reasons he wished he
hadn t left or how much he missed the teams. Instead, he gave the verbal equivalent of a shrug, like it
was all no big deal.
My brothers needed me. But that didn t seem like enough of an explanation, so he added, A few
years ago, we were all in this bar. It was a holiday I don t remember which and there we were,
sitting in awkward silence, brooding into our drinks. We spent more time apart than together, only
meeting up if we all happened to be stateside at the same time, and it was getting to the point that they
felt like strangers to me.
He winced at the memory. When it had dawned on him that he didn t know his brothers anymore,
he d realized something had to change, because as a family, they were failing miserably.
What did you do? Sage asked.
Out of the blue, Greer suggested we could go into the private eye business together.
Just like that?
Pretty much, yeah. We had never talked about doing anything like that before. I had planned to stay
in the Navy for life and didn t want to do anything else. But then I looked over at Jude. He had just
come home from an up-close-and-personal with death in Afghanistan and several of his friends were
missing, presumed prisoners of war. And it suddenly hit me how close we d come to having an
empty seat and untouched beer at our table instead of our youngest brother. He still remembered the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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