“What is the deal?” Drake demanded between gritted teeth. “Why him?”
His phone rang. He yanked it out as a motorcycle passed them. “What?”
“Don’t let her on the plane!”
His hold tightened on the phone.
“Do you hear me? This is Agent Victor Monroe. I’ve got intel that York’s private plane is going to be targeted. Do not let Jasmine get on that flight—”
Drake’s gaze slanted to his rear-view mirror. “Too late,” he muttered as he stared at that smoke-filled sky. “The plane’s burning.”
There was a swift inhalation of air. “But you have Jasmine. You have Jasmine!”
His stare drifted to her. She sat stiffly next to him. “I’ve got her.”
“Good…good…if you want her to stay alive, you’ll listen very, very carefully because I am the only one who can help her.”
“Cause you did such a stellar job last time,” Drake snapped at him. “The way you had her safe in the city—oh, wait, she was being taken by those jerks in the van—”
“St. Laurence Street. Five-oh-eight. Get her there, understand? I’ll meet you, and this will end.”
The line went dead. Asshole agent. He shoved his phone aside. Jasmine didn’t ask any questions, she just sat there in silence, and that silence was driving him crazy.
Why Noah? “He’s got a wife.” Yeah, so Noah was the one who laughed easily. Who didn’t scare small children. Who—
“I’m not…interested in him that way.”
“You cried for him.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Jasmine’s fingers twist in her lap.
“Tell me why he matters. Why he changed everything for you.” And maybe he’d stop wanting to punch his best friend.
“You won’t believe me.” Her words were so soft that he had to strain to hear them. “I keep seeing the plane…if he’d been on it…”
“Screw Noah! You were the one nearly blown to hell!” And he couldn’t get that image out of his mind. Jasmine should have been safe. This wasn’t the way the plan was supposed to work. Not at all.
Drake had underestimated his enemy. Maxwell’s reach was greater than he’d realized. Were you watching Noah and Trace? Hell, if Maxwell was looking for payback because of Anna Jean, then, dammit, yes, Maxwell would be keeping eyes on them, too. There was no telling how long the bastard had been putting them all in his crosshairs.
Rage churned within Drake. Rage and…fear. I almost lost Jasmine.
“The pilot nearly died, too.” Her voice was even softer than before.
“No, he didn’t,” Drake snarled back. “Because you risked your life to go back in after him! You should’ve gotten out, you should’ve—”
“That’s not who I am.”
He spun the car off the main road. They hit dirt and gravel and flew forward toward the swamp. It was a path most wouldn’t have known. It was a path he took every time he needed to escape.
He kept driving, kept going until he was sure they were out of sight and that all the fire trucks and cops wouldn’t see him.
Good thing he knew the area so well. Once upon a time, he’d spent summers on all these back roads when he stayed with his grandfather. They’d hunted. Fished. Stared at sunsets and snakes.
“I couldn’t leave him to die. I-I couldn’t let anyone just…die.”
He braked the car. Dust shot into the air around them.
“Um, I’m not so sure this is the best place for your Porsche…”
He jumped out of the car.
She followed him, much, much more slowly. “Is that a cabin?” She was staring at the dense vegetation around them. The swamp had nearly swallowed the cabin. “We should get out of here. This is someone’s property—”
“Mine.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “What?”
“The cabin is mine.”
Her eyes squinted as she looked at the cabin once more. “You drive a Porsche, you have luxury homes in Vegas and New Orleans and you-”
“I grew up dirt poor in Mississippi until I was ten. Then my dad cut out on me, and my mother and I moved in with my grandfather.” He pointed to the cabin behind him. “I spent the best years of my life in this place.”
Her expression softened.
“Other than Noah and Trace, no one else knows about this cabin. We’ll be safe here until I can make contact with Trace again.” He knew that Noah and Trace would be able to handle the cops. Trace had connections all over the place. “Let’s get inside.”
She glanced toward his now dirt-covered Porsche. “You surprise me.”
He paused on the first wooden step. Sure, the cabin might not be much to look at, but he felt at home there. Always had. He came out there at least four or five times a year, when the city was about to choke the life out of him, and he remembered who he’d been a lifetime ago.
A boy who fished on the dock. A boy who jumped into the water and laughed at the freedom. A boy who looked up at stars and dreamed.
Not just a man with too many nightmares.
“I…didn’t see this for you,” Jasmine said as her hand waved toward the cabin. “It doesn’t seem to fit.”
“Then maybe you should’ve checked more into my past, and not just my present.”
She gave a jerky little nod at that as she came closer to him. “My past is so screwed up. I have a rule that I try not to poke too far into anyone else’s—”
He caught her hand in his. “Because you don’t want them knowing about yours?”
“Yes.” So soft.
“I want to know everything.”
She smiled, but her dimples didn’t flash. “Isn’t that what Trace is for? So he can give you a file on me?”
“I want you to tell me.”
He waited a beat.
“You will tell me.”
One way…or another.
***
Saxon braked his motorcycle a good distance from the old cabin. The Porsche waited, covered in dirt and dust, about fifteen feet from the place. Drake’s car. He’d recognized it on sight.
So he’d followed them. Carefully.
His eyes slid over the cabin. Drake and Jazz were in there.
This was the perfect opportunity. Just what his boss had been waiting for.
Now, if he could just get the go-ahead to act.
Saxon pulled out his phone. “Guess who I’ve got in my sights…”