Better When He's Brave
Page 17
I could see him calculating the pros and cons of what I was asking him to do for me. Race didn’t do anything without weighing all of his options. He knew I was asking him to bring a verified security threat under his protected roof. He understood I was asking him to do something that Bax was going to be totally against. He grasped that I was desperate enough to plead with him to offer shelter to a woman that had not only offered his sister up as a sacrificial lamb but whose actions had led directly to him being beaten within an inch of his life. I was asking him for so much more than he had ever asked me for, and he knew it. And because he was fucking brilliant, he knew that if he agreed it would mean I would owe him huge down the line. Get-out-of-jail-free huge.
I lived my life between very clear black and white lines but lately all the edges had blurred into so many shades of gray it was hard to see through the fog anymore. I believed in right and wrong, in good and bad. I was willing to die for those convictions, but I also wanted the good guys to win occasionally. Lately, it seemed like the way to do that was to play by the bad guys’ rules. It made everything inside of me snap and thrash around in anger but I didn’t have a choice and I could see Race knew that as well.
“Give me a week. There isn’t availability right now, but I’ll arrange some things and find you a spot.”
I sighed and let my head fall forward so that I was looking at my boots and the worn wood of the dock between them.
“Do I even want to ask how you’re going to arrange a vacancy on such short notice?”
He chuckled and it made the hairs on my arms raise up. I remembered him when he was just a lost rich kid boosting cars with Bax. He wasn’t lost anymore, and the man he had become was not one to be underestimated.
“Probably not, but you’ll both be safe within those walls and I’ll even let you borrow Booker. He can keep an eye on your little rat when you’re off trying to save the world.”
I snapped my head up to glare at him, but he had already turned away and was headed back toward the fancy-looking condominium complex.
“I would think you would be a little more sympathetic to someone doing whatever they have to in order to survive, Hartman.”
I saw his shoulders shrug and he didn’t turn around as he hollered at me, “You should remember that no good deed goes unpunished, Titus. She says she’s here to help you now, but she told Dovie the same thing right before she set her up. I want the guy that is messing with my life and with my family, and if you think she’s the way we get to him, then I want her as close as possible.”
I didn’t have any way to contradict him because that was the same logic I was using, so I just grunted at his back as he walked away.
Chapter 5
Reeve
A FEW DAYS HIDING out in Bax’s tiny apartment made me feel like I was back in WITSEC. I hadn’t seen anyone besides the pizza delivery guy. And I hadn’t heard from Titus except for the day after he ditched me here when he showed up with a handful of clothes he told me he borrowed from a neighbor and a pay-as-you-go cell phone that he shoved in my hand with a grunt. He told me only to use it in case of an emergency and then disappeared without another word. It was obvious everything about having to deal with me was grating on him, but I didn’t have a solution to that problem, so I simply took the phone and collapsed against the door after he stormed away, a cloud of anger and tension hanging thick in his wake.
Every night since I had taunted him into kissing me, goaded him into letting some of that rock-hard veneer he had in place slip, I felt like I was drowning in him. Admittedly my fascination with Titus King was nothing new, but now that I knew, now that I had actual experience with what it was like to be wanted by him, to be the sole focus of that inferno of hot desire, I couldn’t get around it. It chased me into sleep. It haunted me when I was awake. I tasted him. I felt him, and when I breathed in and out I could swear when my heart beat it was tapping out his name over and over again.
I should be focused on Conner. I needed to keep my eye on the prize because only the winner of this game was making it out alive. The thought of being in a crazy man’s crosshairs was petrifying. He killed a girl just because she looked like me, for God’s sake, and he hadn’t done it cleanly or mercifully. She had suffered; Titus was brutally honest when I asked about the body that had pulled him away before things had gotten out of control at the motel. She had suffered big-time and we both knew that was nothing compared to what Conner would do when he finally caught up with me.
There was a time before Titus when I would have just run. I was quick on my feet and knew how to make ends meet when I had to. There were plenty of no-name towns in Middle America where I could get lost and never be found again. But now that the surly detective was right in front of me, willing to believe that I had some kind of redeeming quality and was honestly willing to help him, I couldn’t do that.
No. It was time to stand my ground and right all my wrongs in the only way I knew how. I was a trap few men could resist, one Conner had already fallen into, and once he came for me I was going to make sure he could never fool or hurt anyone ever again. A showdown was on the horizon. In the real world good didn’t triumph over evil because evil didn’t play fair. That meant only bad had a shot at taking evil down, and I was just bad enough to get the job done. I wanted Titus to keep me alive, not so I could testify but so that I could put a bullet in Conner before he put a bullet in me or anyone else in the Point. I was going to sacrifice myself for the greater good and the only part of it that made me nervous was the fact that I was lying to the handsome detective about my true intentions. He already thought I was shady and devious; once this came to light, he was bound to think I really was nothing more than a soulless killer.
When someone pounded on the door well after the sun had gone down on the day Titus said he was coming to collect me, I automatically assumed it was going to be him. However, I had lived in the Point way too long to ever just open a door without seeing what was on the other side. When I checked the peephole it wasn’t bright blue eyes looking back at me, but instead a forest-green pair set in a face made to make women stupid with lust. It was almost like he could hear what I was thinking because before I reached for the security chain on the door, the golden god smiled at me, flashing a dimple that made my heart trip involuntarily. Race was dangerous in a totally different way from Bax, and I suddenly understood why the two of them together made an unstoppable team.
I lived my life between very clear black and white lines but lately all the edges had blurred into so many shades of gray it was hard to see through the fog anymore. I believed in right and wrong, in good and bad. I was willing to die for those convictions, but I also wanted the good guys to win occasionally. Lately, it seemed like the way to do that was to play by the bad guys’ rules. It made everything inside of me snap and thrash around in anger but I didn’t have a choice and I could see Race knew that as well.
“Give me a week. There isn’t availability right now, but I’ll arrange some things and find you a spot.”
I sighed and let my head fall forward so that I was looking at my boots and the worn wood of the dock between them.
“Do I even want to ask how you’re going to arrange a vacancy on such short notice?”
He chuckled and it made the hairs on my arms raise up. I remembered him when he was just a lost rich kid boosting cars with Bax. He wasn’t lost anymore, and the man he had become was not one to be underestimated.
“Probably not, but you’ll both be safe within those walls and I’ll even let you borrow Booker. He can keep an eye on your little rat when you’re off trying to save the world.”
I snapped my head up to glare at him, but he had already turned away and was headed back toward the fancy-looking condominium complex.
“I would think you would be a little more sympathetic to someone doing whatever they have to in order to survive, Hartman.”
I saw his shoulders shrug and he didn’t turn around as he hollered at me, “You should remember that no good deed goes unpunished, Titus. She says she’s here to help you now, but she told Dovie the same thing right before she set her up. I want the guy that is messing with my life and with my family, and if you think she’s the way we get to him, then I want her as close as possible.”
I didn’t have any way to contradict him because that was the same logic I was using, so I just grunted at his back as he walked away.
Chapter 5
Reeve
A FEW DAYS HIDING out in Bax’s tiny apartment made me feel like I was back in WITSEC. I hadn’t seen anyone besides the pizza delivery guy. And I hadn’t heard from Titus except for the day after he ditched me here when he showed up with a handful of clothes he told me he borrowed from a neighbor and a pay-as-you-go cell phone that he shoved in my hand with a grunt. He told me only to use it in case of an emergency and then disappeared without another word. It was obvious everything about having to deal with me was grating on him, but I didn’t have a solution to that problem, so I simply took the phone and collapsed against the door after he stormed away, a cloud of anger and tension hanging thick in his wake.
Every night since I had taunted him into kissing me, goaded him into letting some of that rock-hard veneer he had in place slip, I felt like I was drowning in him. Admittedly my fascination with Titus King was nothing new, but now that I knew, now that I had actual experience with what it was like to be wanted by him, to be the sole focus of that inferno of hot desire, I couldn’t get around it. It chased me into sleep. It haunted me when I was awake. I tasted him. I felt him, and when I breathed in and out I could swear when my heart beat it was tapping out his name over and over again.
I should be focused on Conner. I needed to keep my eye on the prize because only the winner of this game was making it out alive. The thought of being in a crazy man’s crosshairs was petrifying. He killed a girl just because she looked like me, for God’s sake, and he hadn’t done it cleanly or mercifully. She had suffered; Titus was brutally honest when I asked about the body that had pulled him away before things had gotten out of control at the motel. She had suffered big-time and we both knew that was nothing compared to what Conner would do when he finally caught up with me.
There was a time before Titus when I would have just run. I was quick on my feet and knew how to make ends meet when I had to. There were plenty of no-name towns in Middle America where I could get lost and never be found again. But now that the surly detective was right in front of me, willing to believe that I had some kind of redeeming quality and was honestly willing to help him, I couldn’t do that.
No. It was time to stand my ground and right all my wrongs in the only way I knew how. I was a trap few men could resist, one Conner had already fallen into, and once he came for me I was going to make sure he could never fool or hurt anyone ever again. A showdown was on the horizon. In the real world good didn’t triumph over evil because evil didn’t play fair. That meant only bad had a shot at taking evil down, and I was just bad enough to get the job done. I wanted Titus to keep me alive, not so I could testify but so that I could put a bullet in Conner before he put a bullet in me or anyone else in the Point. I was going to sacrifice myself for the greater good and the only part of it that made me nervous was the fact that I was lying to the handsome detective about my true intentions. He already thought I was shady and devious; once this came to light, he was bound to think I really was nothing more than a soulless killer.
When someone pounded on the door well after the sun had gone down on the day Titus said he was coming to collect me, I automatically assumed it was going to be him. However, I had lived in the Point way too long to ever just open a door without seeing what was on the other side. When I checked the peephole it wasn’t bright blue eyes looking back at me, but instead a forest-green pair set in a face made to make women stupid with lust. It was almost like he could hear what I was thinking because before I reached for the security chain on the door, the golden god smiled at me, flashing a dimple that made my heart trip involuntarily. Race was dangerous in a totally different way from Bax, and I suddenly understood why the two of them together made an unstoppable team.
