Web of Lies

by Elizabeth Knox

  “My car is parked on the main road,” she says.

  I frown at her. “You were expecting trouble?”

  “Not exactly, but I’ve learnt it pays to be ahead in this game.”

  She’s smarter than me. I parked directly in front of the reception area.

  A loud bang from inside the room filters down from the still open window. They must have breached the door. I’m surprised it held that long. I snag Cara’s hand and tug her.

  “Time to run, little bird.”

  Chapter Seven

  Annabel

  I surprised him by not running. I can tell by the fact his jaw relaxes a little and his eyes go softer. Dante Black might like to think he’s a closed book, but I can read him. I learnt a lot about the man in the time we were together. He has a lot of little tells that he thinks he keeps locked down, but I’ve made a living of reading people.

  You didn’t read him. He knew you were up to something.

  I didn’t, and I don’t know why. Maybe I was distracted.

  By him . . .

  I shove that thought savagely aside and focus on following him closely as we make our way through the scrubland. I’m glad I left my clothes on when I lay down to sleep, but I wish I’d grabbed a jacket out of the rucksack slung over my shoulder. The night air is cold. There’s no time to stop, though, not when we’re running for our lives, and I have no doubt that’s what we’re doing. I have no idea who was shooting at us, but I’m aware people don’t fire at you unless they mean you harm.

  I’m sure the police are en route, and the last place we need to be is anywhere near the motel when they arrive. Getting locked up is not a good idea.

  I trail after him, his long legs eating up the ground faster as we move. I have to trot to keep up with him. Not surprising though, the man is huge, both in height and broadness. He could’ve killed me easily, yet he didn’t. Why?

  I have no idea, but I’m not going to question the fact I’m still breathing. I’ll worry about the what-ifs and whys later, when an armed lunatic isn’t trying to kill us.

  As we move away, the motel lights don’t reach out here, so the dark is encapsulating. I can barely see a foot in front of me to see where I’m putting my booted feet down. He turns back to the motel at the sound of raised voices, and I stumble at his sudden change in direction. Dante reaches out and steadies me and I can’t help but glance up at him as heat spreads through my body at his touch. Attraction was never an issue. Dante is a handsome man, even with the scar through his lip and the one over his right eyebrow. I don’t know how they happened, but maybe one day he’ll tell me.

  He drags me down to the ground, which breaks abruptly through my musing. My knees hit the dirt hard enough to rattle my bones, but I don’t have chance to think about it, because Dante pushes my body low as two men appear under the lights coming from the motel.

  I peer at them, trying to see if I recognise them, but I don’t. Dante’s low curse tells me he does.

  One of the men points in our direction, over the dark brushland and my heart skitters to a stop. Dante grabs my bicep and mutters, “We need to move, fast.”

  He hauls me up and starts to run. The problem is he has hold of my hand, and I’m not an athlete, not by any stretch. Keeping up with his pace makes my calves burn and my lungs heave.

  The dirt next to me kicks up and the crack of a shot fills the air a moment later. Shit, we’re being fired at.

  “Faster!” Dante barks and I push my legs to move. Adrenaline courses through my veins. I’m fighting for my life here, but I’m also unfit and the pace Dante sets is gruelling.

  By the time we reach the road, he’s practically dragging me to keep me moving.

  He stops at the edge of the scrubland and peers across the street. It’s a side road in a residential area, and the late hour means it’s dead. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.

  “Where’s your car parked?” he asks in a barely audible voice.

  I point in the direction of a small car parked across the street. There’re a few other cars in the lot, making it the perfect cover.

  “You have your keys?”

  I sling my rucksack on to the ground and kneel to rummage through it. It takes me a moment, but I find them in the bottom and hold them up to show Dante.

  He snatches them off my finger.

  “Hey!”

  “Let’s go,” he says, ignoring my protest.

  I barely manage to get my rucksack back on my shoulder before he’s seizing my hand and we’re running again. My lungs are burning, fire coating the back of my throat as we cross the road at a sprint. He hits the central locking button as we approach, the car lighting up the darkened shadows with an illuminating orange.

  “Give me the keys back,” I tell him as we approach the car at a full jog.

  “I’m driving,” is his bizarre response.

  “Um, Dante, it’s my car. Give me the keys.”

  He doesn’t answer, nor does he give me the keys and when we reach the car, we both head to the driver’s side.

  “You can get in the other side, or stay here,” he tells me. “But you have until I get in the car to decide. If you’re not sitting in the passenger seat, I’m leaving you here.”

  While I doubt he would, given he needs me, we’re also running away from armed lunatics. He might decide it’s not worth trying to recover the money from me and take off.

  Rushing around the front of the car, I climb in just as he peals out of the lot. I barely manage to get my seatbelt on before he’s taking the corner at speed.

  Jesus, we’re going to die in the car, not because of bullets.

  The roads are quiet, but there are a few cars around. He slows his speed and joins the traffic, which makes my ass unclench.

  His gaze splits between the road ahead and the mirrors, checking we’re not being tailed. I try not to puke, as my stomach roils. I don’t get car sick, but the way he threw the car around like a NASCAR driver made my brain rattle and my belly flip.

  After a few minutes, and once my stomach is mostly under control, I ask, “Did you recognise the men shooting at us?”

  He doesn’t speak.

  “Dante?” I press.

  “They’re my father’s men.”

  “The ones that you had coming to torture me?”

  I watch his face in profile as it contorts into a scowl. “They were never coming, little bird. I lied.”

  Anger flares through me. “You let me believe I was going to be tortured.”

  “You stole half a million pounds from me,” he drawls. “Let’s call it even, eh?”

  I mutter a string of curses under my breath. “I don’t think the two events are remotely comparable.”

  “You’re right. What you did to me was worse.”

  I gawk at him. “How is taking money worse than being tortured?”

  “Because of what you did, we’re both probably going to be tortured and then murdered. So, Cara, or whatever the fuck your name is, I would say what you did is infinitely worse.”

  I open then close my mouth again.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Eight

  Dante

  My head is reeling, my mind going a hundred thousand miles per hour. The shooters at the motel were my father’s chief torturer and my brother. What the hell is Pepe doing leading this? Would my own brother kill me? Drag me back to our father to meet whatever fate?

  Probably.

  Pepe’s always been a good soldier. It’s why our father made him his second in command. I could never follow orders. I thought things through too much, considered all the evidence, all the angles, all the reasons. I don’t have the same lust for blood or desire to inflict pain either.

  I try not to focus on Cara, who is shifting in the seat next to me, as if she’s struggling to get comfortable. I stare straight ahead. I don’t care about her comfort. Not even a little bit. My entire focus is on getting out of London in one piece, and staying alive long enough to pro
ve I didn’t have anything to do with Dad’s money going missing.

  “You need to tell me everything,” I say to her, keeping my gaze between the road and the mirrors. I don’t think we’re being followed, but it pays to keep my wits about me.

  “Oh, right, let me just spill everything to a man who wanted to kill me less than ten minutes ago.”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I wasn’t going to shoot you.”

  I should have. I should have put a bullet right between her eyes for what she did. Her actions caused a chain reaction that can only be stopped by my death— by both our deaths.

  “What?”

  “I wanted to scare you, not kill you.”

  I hope this admission will make her trust me. I need the answers she has.

  It would have been so easy to break her, to do what my Escarlo genes demanded and tap into the blood lust that rolls through my DNA. Had she been anyone else, I would have. I couldn’t do it to her, though. Why, I don’t know, only that the thought of harming her made my stomach twist. I am, as my father has repeatedly told me, weak.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I didn’t want you dead, little bird, but I do need the information you have.”

  She doesn’t speak for a long moment, and I think she isn’t going to until she sighs. “What is going on here?”

  “I think we’ve both been played.”

  “How?”

  “Think about it logically, darlin’.” I pause, then admit, “You didn’t slip up or get sloppy. I was tipped off about you being dodgy. That’s how I knew.”

  I see her freeze out of the corner of my eye. “By whom?”

  “I don’t know. I had a call one night. I was told to be careful around you.”

  “So, you didn’t figure me out yourself? You lied.”

  “I don’t think you get to judge when it comes to lying, darlin’. Nothing about you is real.”

  “Not true. I didn’t lie about liking your company, Dante.” This admission is given quietly and softly and it makes my dick twitch.

  Get a grip. She betrayed you.

  My dick doesn’t care about that, though.

  “Yeah, well, you have a funny way of showing it.”

  She glares at me. I can’t see it, because I’m focused on driving, but I can feel it boring into the side of my head.

  “Continue explaining how we’ve been played.”

  “Your boss is out of commission as well, right?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “That usual?”

  “No,” she admits.

  “Right, so something weird is going on here. I’m just not entirely sure what.”

  She lets out a dramatic sigh. “If you’d just let me go with the money, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

  “Are you kidding? If I didn’t chase you down, my father’s men definitely would have. You don’t steal from an Escarlo, ever.”

  “Dante, I’m starting to think we have been set up. I was told the account was your personal one, and my boss never mentioned your Escarlo connections either. He made out you were just some rich socialite.”

  I mull this over, trying to find the links between her and me and what the hell is going on.

  “Would your boss pull something like this?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought so, but now . . . I haven’t been able to get in contact with him since this job ended.”

  I flinch internally at her choice of words. Job. I know this is all this was to her, but it still pisses me off hearing her say that. I don’t know why because it’s not like the woman she pretended to be was real. She wasn’t. I have no idea who she is. I don’t even know her real name.

  “Is that usual?”

  “No, he always gets in touch more or less as soon as I’m clear. He’s not answering his phone or any messages, though. I am starting to get worried.” She shakes herself. “But a lack of communication doesn’t prove what you’re saying, Dante. Maybe he can’t call. Maybe he was in an accident or busy or a hundred other reasons.”

  “Maybe.” I don’t sound convincing, probably because I don’t believe it.

  “Dante, it doesn’t prove anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but it’s a starting point.”

  I pull the car over to the side of the road and say, “Try him again.”

  “I’m not calling my boss with you sitting here.”

  “Fine, I’ll get out of the car and give you privacy, but we need answers here, darlin’. We need to know what we’re up against.”

  “A phone call isn’t going to prove that. He’s as good a liar as I am.”

  She’s right. I bang my hand on the steering wheel, frustration lancing me. I know something is going on, but I just can’t pull the threads enough to unravel the picture.

  She sighs. “I’ll call him again, but you need to get out of the car. If this isn’t some big conspiracy, I won’t hand him over.”

  I nod and climb out of the vehicle, moving to a small wall at the side of the road and putting my ass on it while she puts the phone to her ear.

  Chapter Nine

  Annabel

  As much as I’m starting to suspect Bastian is somehow setting me up, there’s no way I’m selling him down the river without proof. I owe him everything.

  I wait for Dante to move a distance away from the car before I hit dial on my phone and wait. It doesn’t even ring this time. It just connects straight to voicemail.

  Unpleasantness snakes through my gut. Where the fuck is he? Why isn't he answering? None of this makes sense, but I think Dante might be on the mark— we’ve been sold down the river. I wonder who the hell called him to warn him about me. A former conquest, maybe?

  No, they surely would have sought their revenge or tried to reclaim the money I took. Why would they go to these lengths instead? It’s a convoluted way of seeking vengeance.

  Because it’s easier for them if Dante kills you instead.

  While this is true, most of the men I stole from are uptight socialites, much like I thought Dante was. If they knew where I was, I’d be in jail right now.

  An unpleasant thought crosses my mind and I try to shut it down immediately: Bastian could have sold you out.

  I disconnect the call and climb out of the car. My legs are a little wobbly as I do and I have to steady myself against the door. Bloody hell, adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

  “He’s not answering,” I tell Dante, shaking my mobile phone in his direction.

  I watch, fascinated, as he rakes his fingers through his hair before pushing up. He’s an attractive man— I can’t deny that— and we had a lot of good times together before my cover was blown. In truth, this job didn’t really feel like a job, which scared me on occasion. Getting too close is dangerous in this game I’m playing.

  Clearly, this game is dangerous full stop. In less than an hour, I’ve been shot at, had a gun to my head— an unloaded gun, I’ve since learnt— and am now fleeing with a man who I’m certain despite his words and actions wants me dead. This is not how I saw my evening going.

  Dante approaches me, his eyes hard, heavy and filled with frustration.

  “Fuck. Okay, well, for now, we keep moving. They can’t be more than a few miles behi—” He breaks off and seizes my arm so abruptly, I squeal.

  “What are you—”

  “You’re shot. Why in the fuck didn’t you say?”

  He tries to push me back into the passenger seat, but I resist. Shot? What’s he talking about? As soon as I think the words pain flares in my side. Ow. What the hell?

  I glance down, my hand flying to the source of the heat firing through my hip and when I do, I feel wet. Bringing my hand in front of my face, I stare at the blood. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than I would like. Blood is supposed to stay inside my body, not be coating my hand.

  I sway a little and he grips my forearms, keeping me steady.

  “I-I didn’t realise . . .”

&n
bsp; He steers me back into the car, pushing me into the passenger seat both gently but firmly. I go without question anyway. I’m too stunned to do anything but what he demands.

  “You didn’t feel it?”

  “I was running for my life. I didn’t really stop to take stock of myself.” The sarcasm dripping from my words has his jaw clenching. Maybe I should dial it back a little.

  His hands move to my shirt, hoisting it up without invitation. I let out a strangled noise and bat him away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to see how bad it is. Stop being a baby.”

  My brows disappear into my hairline. “I’m not.”

  “Cara, let me see the damage, see if it needs bandaging or not.” His voice is low, soft and it melts my insides. “I’ve seen you naked, for fuck’s sake. Seeing your side is hardly a big deal.”

  His words piss me off, and I lose that melty feeling.

  “Fine.” My fingers grip the edge of the seat as he carefully peels my shirt up again.

  I hold my breath as he leans closer and examines my injury, gently probing around the site.

  “It looks like it skimmed you,” he says after a moment. “Do you have anything we can use to apply pressure?”

  “Clearly, you’re not a stranger to dealing with gunshot wounds,” I mutter.

  “I’ve shot my share of people,” is his terse response. My mouth clamps shut. The last thing I need is for him to shoot me. That gun of his might not be loaded right now, but I’m sure he hasn’t come without bullets. He’s not an idiot. At least, I don’t think he is from what I’ve gleaned during the time we were together. Maybe everything he showed me then was as much a lie as everything I showed him.

  What a pair we make.

  “There’s a towel in my bag,” I start to lean down to reach for it, but he stops me, snagging it before I can.

  “You sit still,” he demands. “I don’t need you bleeding all over the upholstery.”

  “Considering it’s my upholstery, why do you care?”