Protected by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  I’d seen him angry, and I’d seen him crazy, but never like this. His face was nearly purple, and his fingers were clenched into fists so tight they could have crumbled.

  I took a small step back, and when Henry didn’t notice, I took another.

  “Audrey, we should go,” Martin said.

  There was a screech of tires, an enormous blackness surging out of nowhere. If it hadn’t happened so fast, I would have cowered, but as it was I stood rooted to the spot in shock as Corbin’s SUV barreled toward us.

  Chapter 24

  The SUV swerved hard to the right, and Corbin must have slammed on the brakes because the back of the vehicle swung toward us.

  The door was opening before the truck came to a stop. I’d never seen anyone move so fast.

  Corbin’s face was calm, but the fury in his eyes… It was like he’d come directly from hell. He raised his right arm, a gun in his hand. He held it comfortably, like it was an extension of himself.

  My fingers pressed into my lips as I stared at my nightmare come true. My entire body had gone cold. “Corbin, no,” I whispered.

  “Drop your gun,” Corbin said.

  “Go fuck yourself, Lagos,” Henry spat.

  My gaze jerked to Henry, and I immediately regretted it. He was holding a semi-automatic pistol.

  And it was pointed right at me.

  In fact, all I could focus on was the glint of the muzzle, the mysterious dark hole. He was less than a foot away—he must have moved closer when Corbin drove up.

  If he pulled the trigger, he wouldn’t miss.

  Years of working as a bounty hunter kicked in.

  I jumped back, moving behind Henry, gambling that he wouldn’t be insane enough to turn his back on Corbin’s gun. The gamble paid off; Henry only started to turn before snapping back toward the bigger threat.

  “Get her out of here,” Corbin growled to Martin.

  “No,” I said. I continued to back up. “Henry, Corbin, don’t do this. No one has to get hurt.”

  “Martin!” Corbin snapped.

  Cool fingers touched mine. “Come on,” Martin said, turning me away from the terrifying scene. “It’s time to go.”

  I jerked free. “You go. I’m not leaving him here to…” To what? To kill for me? To die? “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Audrey, I’m sure he appreciates your loyalty, but by staying here, you’re making it hard for him to control the situation. You’re a liability. You have to come with me.”

  “Fuck it,” Corbin said. There was a dull crack. Not a deafening explosion—more like someone had stepped on and broken a stick. An acrid, slightly smoky odor hung in the air.

  “No,” I gasped. I started to turn, but Martin grabbed me, pulled me to him.

  “Don’t look,” Martin said. “You don’t want to see.”

  “Get her out of here,” Corbin growled. “Now!”

  Martin kept a tight grip on my shoulders as we half walked, half ran toward his motorcycle.

  The dull crack continued to echo in my ears, matching the drumming of my pulse. Corbin was alive, I knew that.

  And Henry?

  Maybe Corbin had just nicked him in the leg, to teach him a lesson.

  If that was the case, why wasn’t Henry screaming in pain?

  By the time we reached the edge of the inn’s parking lot, tears were streaming down my face, blurring the world around me.

  Martin tied a bandana around my eyes and pushed the motorcycle helmet over my head. I tried to take it off again, but he brushed my hands away. “It’s better if you don’t see,” he said softly. “Trust me.”

  He helped me onto the motorcycle. “Hold on,” he said, placing my hands on his waist.

  The second we started to move, I pushed up the visor, pulled down the makeshift blindfold and looked back toward where we’d come from.

  The lot was empty, no sign of the SUV. Inside the office, the bald man was sitting behind his desk, watching television. He didn’t seem to notice we were there, which I guessed meant he hadn’t heard the gunshot. On the road, no one was slowed down, filming with their cell phones.

  And there was no lump on the pavement, no dead body. It was like Henry had disappeared, and along with him, Corbin.

  “Did I just imagine that?” I murmured.

  “Yes,” Martin said. “You must have, ’cause I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Now hold on.”

  I expected Martin would take me to the office, or maybe to Corbin’s condo, but instead he headed over to Shock Rock, the bar where some Stroop employees liked to soak their livers. A.k.a. the last place I wanted to be.

  Hands on my elbows, he steered me across the slightly sticky floor to a booth all the way in the back. “Wait here.”

  Numbly, I stood where he’d left me and stared out the window at the parking lot and the road beyond. Where was Corbin? What was happening to him?

  Five minutes later, Martin returned with a tray. On it were eight shot glasses filled with clear liquid.

  “Half for you, half for me,” he said, lining them up in the middle of the table. “Sit.” He gave me a gentle little shove, and I folded onto the bench, the odor of stale beer wafting up.

  Martin pushed four of the shot glasses toward me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to drink. I want to know where Corbin is.”

  “I imagine he’s handling business,” Martin said with a dry little laugh. “Tell you what. Drink two of your shots, and I’ll confess something.”

  Rubbing a hand over my face, I took a deep breath. Was I going to cry again? I didn’t think so, but I felt… weird. Outside of my body.

  “It’s something good,” he said. “A secret your brother’s been keeping, but half of the office was in on it.”

  “Martin, I don’t care.”

  “Fine. Just one shot, and I’ll tell you.” He nudged one of the glasses toward me. “You’ll like it. It’s sweet.”

  My head snapped up. “I’ll drink it if you tell me what happened just now.”

  His lips hardened into a firm line. “You were there. You know what happened.”

  The tears started again. Through them, I was aware that Martin looked worried—more worried than he’d been when…

  When…

  When Corbin had shot Henry in broad daylight on the side of the road.

  I didn’t care about Henry, I realized. If anything, I hated him more than ever. And I didn’t care what Corbin had done.

  “Tell me Corbin will be ok,” I said, knowing I sounded every bit as scared as I was. “Someone must have seen. If he goes to prison, I’ll die.”

  “He’ll be ok,” Martin promised, nodding in determination. “He… He timed it, Audrey. The light at the end of the road was red. There weren’t any cars passing by when it happened. He parked to block the view from the stores on the other side of the road. Henry didn’t suffer, and Corbin… He’ll be ok.”

  He took my hand, uncurled my fingers and wrapped them around the glass. “Drink this and I’ll tell you two secrets.”

  I drank it just to shut him up. He was right; it was sweet, tasted faintly of cherry, and left a warm feeling as it washed down my throat.

  “Have another.”

  I did the next three in quick succession, then leaned back, my lips and tongue tingling. Maybe four more were in order; I needed to be distracted or I was going to start screaming and might not ever stop.

  “Secrets?” Martin asked. His voice was light, but his eyes were serious.

  “Please.”

  Martin worked his jaw. “What happened today was fucked up. Henry spouting insanity about you killing someone. You’re no killer, and if I’d had doubts, which I didn’t, by the way, they would have been settled by your reaction. Corbin was relieved.”

  Martin made short work of two of his shots.

  “Either I’m really, really drunk already or you neglected the secret part of your secret,” I said.

  He made a face and wiggled his head
side to side. “Corbin was relieved. You’re a little spooked, and that’s normal, but Corbin… He’s fine.”

  “I wouldn’t expect less,” I said. My head felt heavy.

  “I saw what you didn’t, and I thought you’d want to know. Look, what happened today was defensible.” Leaning in, Martin dropped his voice. “Henry had a gun to your head. I knew he’d been losing his shit, but I had no idea the man was so far gone. He never should have been released from prison.”

  “I don’t care about Henry,” I said flatly, because I didn’t.

  “Nor should you. This is about Corbin, and I’m trying to tell you he’s fine.”

  “Unless he gets pulled over…”

  “He’s not so stupid as to run red lights with cargo in the back. If something happens, he’ll talk his way out of it.”

  I believed him because I knew Corbin was careful. But I also wanted the reassurance of hearing it said aloud. “How can you be so sure?”

  “We have friends in common,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that. What I’m wondering is, how can you not know?”

  The bartender walked up with two full-sized drinks.

  “What are these?” Martin asked her. “To reward me for my loyal patronage?”

  She smiled. “I got a phone call asking me to bring you two drinks every fifteen minutes or until you pass out.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “And a message. Um… Kevin says he’s sorry he’s running late but he’ll be here soon.” She clicked her tongue. “But probably not too soon, in my opinion, because otherwise he wouldn’t be sending drinks, right?” She winked at me.

  Martin waited until she’d walked away to say, “I texted… Kevin… to let him know where we are.”

  “It didn’t occur to me to ask.” The shots were giving me a cozy, pleasant feeling. “Wasn’t there a second secret?”

  “The office competition,” Martin said.

  “What competition? You mean the whiteboard?”

  “The whiteboard.”

  “God, I fucking hated that thing. Where’d it go?”

  “A casualty of the break-in.” Martin laughed. “Rob and I thought it would be funny to…” He trailed off when I held up a hand.

  I closed my eyes. “I knew the competition was rigged,” I announced solemnly, even though I hadn’t. Of course now it was obvious. No matter how hard I’d worked, Martin had always been there, either tied or just ahead of me. “You know what? I don’t care.”

  “You don’t? That’s good, because the last few weeks before it broke, we had to adjust my score downward to keep it close.”

  My eyes flew open. “You did not!”

  “Nah, we didn’t. But you should have seen the look on your face. You want a tip, boss girl?”

  “Not a girl,” I said halfheartedly, too buzzed to care. I picked up the drink Corbin had ordered from afar. Long Island Iced Tea—in case there was any doubt he was trying to get me drunk.

  “Here’s my tip,” Martin said. “Let your employees do all the hard work.”

  “I like getting dirty.” Given the last few weeks, that needed a qualifier. “Sometimes.”

  “You like being the best,” Martin said. “But in this job, whoever’s at the top is sacrificing to stay there. You don’t need to be the top employee. Couldn’t you be happy as one-third owner of the top bounty hunting company?”

  I was mid-sip when he said that, and I started laughing. “I’d love to settle for that, but Stroop Finders has fallen, in case you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “It’ll be all the sweeter when you come out on top again. I like working for Stroop, and not just because your receptionist is the hottest piece of ass I’ve ever had. And not because she tells me every morning that I’m the hottest piece of ass she’s ever had.” He smiled, evidently pleased with his skill at working a repugnant image into the conversation.

  “Then why?” I asked before he could continue elaborating on the joys of sex with Erin.

  “Because you care. Rob cares. Bobby cares—your dad’s a legend, you know. The three of you are the reason every good bounty hunter wants to work for you. I’d make more money on my own, but…” He shrugged. “Working alone is more dangerous, longer hours.” A wicked glint appeared in his eyes. “More dangerous most days. Today, it’s a close call.”

  “Wise guy,” I said, and took another long sip, then pushed the glass away. “I’d better stop, or I’ll puke.”

  Martin slipped away, returning a minute later with two tall glasses of water.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem.”

  For fifteen minutes, we sat in companionable silence. I thought about what had happened in that abandoned lot and how foreign Corbin had been to me. I thought about how I wasn’t sad that Henry was dead.

  In fact, I was relieved. It was buried under a mountain of fear about what might happen to Corbin, but I was happy he was dead. I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life worrying about Henry popping out of the darkness to exact his revenge.

  Best of all, I wouldn’t have to worry about him hurting Corbin. We were free.

  “What are you smiling about?” Martin asked.

  I hadn’t realized I was. “Nothing,” I said. “Feel like a game of darts?”

  A grin broke across his face. “You wanna play for money?”

  “You just told me a few minutes ago that you cheated with the office competition,” I said. “So, no.”

  We wandered over to the dartboard, where Martin firmly kicked my ass. Apparently he’d never heard of kissing up to the boss. We were on our fourth or fifth game when the door pushed open.

  I knew it was Corbin; I knew it in my very bones, felt him like a powerful electrical force, something dangerous and compelling and oh so wild.

  “Audrey.”

  Slowly, I turned.

  Chapter 25

  Corbin was briefly silhouetted in the sunshine pouring through the closing door, but as he walked toward me, his handsome features came into sharp focus.

  He was unharmed. That was the first thing I noticed, and I didn’t care about his mask-like expression or that I would never understand what enabled him to do some of the things he had.

  I rushed toward him, threw my arms around his neck, and squeezed so tight that my muscles ached. He pulled me in, wrapping me in his arms, his scent, his love.

  “Are you ok, baby?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, or tried to say. I was sobbing, unable to breathe. My nose was running, and I was making a hideous keening sound. “I thought I lost you.”

  My words sounded like they had been chewed up in a garbage disposal, but Corbin must have understood because he said, “I will never leave you.”

  “I don’t care about the secrets,” I said. I didn’t even care about his reaction to my marriage proposal.

  “Baby. You have to trust me.” His voice was soothing. “Do you want a tissue?”

  Nodding, I extracted myself from his arms. Corbin handed me a tissue, still warm from his pocket, and I wiped my eyes and nose.

  “Today was a day, huh?” I said with a weak laugh.

  “Let me settle the tab, and we’ll talk outside for a bit. Can you wait here?”

  I nodded and moved back. Corbin went to Martin first, and they had a brief conversation that ended with them shaking hands. Martin wandered back to our booth.

  As Corbin headed to the bar, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I knew I’d be having nightmares about Henry shooting first.

  When Corbin returned, I half waved goodbye to Martin, who called out, “See you at work.”

  “See you tomorrow.”

  Corbin pushed open the doors. “Don’t you think you should take a few days off.” It wasn’t a question.

  “And what? Sit around and obsess over dark things? Brood over my problems? How did you find me, anyway?”

  “What problems?” He opened the door of a gleaming white SUV I’d never seen before, and I got in.
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  I didn’t ask what had happened to the other truck. I didn’t ask where this one had come from.

  “What problems?” Corbin repeated as he began driving.

  “Work stuff.”

  “Not boyfriend stuff?”

  I shook my head. “No. But if you ever do that again…” I felt the tears threatening to start again.

  “Audrey, Henry didn’t taunt you or make a rude face. He pulled a gun on you. Consider taking a little time off—”

  “I’m glad he’s dead,” I said. It came out in a whisper, far too soft, so I cleared my throat. “I’m relieved. I’d felt like there was an invisible vise tightening around me, and… It’s gone.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to thank him, though; that would have felt macabre.

  “Good.” There was grim satisfaction in Corbin’s voice. “I’m sorry I shot him before Martin could take you away, but the situation was too dangerous. Henry was too unpredictable.”

  Even though I had no regrets about what had happened, I didn’t want to relive those moments. “Where is he?” I couldn’t bring myself to say his body.

  “There was a contract on him,” Corbin said. “I warned you that he’d pissed off some powerful people by agreeing to spill dirt in exchange for his release from prison.”

  “Corbin—”

  “One of them has access to an incinerator.”

  I gasped, and Corbin shook his head. “No more details. And as for how I found you, it was as easy as redialing the last number you’d called from your office phone.”

  “Oh.” It was pretty obvious now that I thought about it. “What happened…” I trailed off, trying to see if I could muster some indignation over how he’d disappeared from my office, but there was nothing. “What happened when Henry called?”

  Corbin’s eyebrows lifted a touch in surprise. “So it was Henry. Erin didn’t say, and it was a hangup. I was on my phone with the real estate company and thought it was your father.” He jerked his head almost angrily. “When I returned, it took me too long to figure out what had happened.”

  “I’m confused. Where were you?”

  “Your father had left me several messages because there was a signature missing from one of the riders on the lease. I drove over to his lawyer’s office. It’s less than two minutes away, and I figured I’d be back before you noticed I was gone. Oswald must not have stayed long.”