I perked up in my seat as Hargut guided the car onto the freeway. “What did he do?”
He laughed, the sound bubbling up from his round belly. “He was full of piss and vinegar at ten, already raising hell in the neighborhood, running game with his friends, and hanging with Conrad Mercer and his old man.”
I shivered. “The hitman.”
“Right. Con’s retired now—or dead, depending on who you ask—so don’t you worry about him. I know your history there, but I can guarantee you that the last thing Con ever wanted was to hurt you. He saved your life, right?”
A flashback of the barrel of his gun pointed at me when I was just a child skittered through my mind.
“He didn’t kill me.” I wasn’t sure if that was quite the same as saving my life.
Hargut nodded, as if he, too, noted the difference. “Well, all that’s over with. Going to make something of yourself instead of hanging around with the likes of Nate and me.”
“I’m going to talk Nate into letting me stay at the house.” I flipped on the air conditioning and started fiddling with the radio knob.
“That’s not, ah, that’s not what the plan is.”
I shrugged and stopped on a popular music station, Justin Timberlake’s newest song rippling through the speakers. “Maybe it’s not your plan, but it’s mine.”
“Wouldn’t you rather stay somewhere closer to school?” he offered gently.
“I already had this conversation with Nate.” I sighed and stared at the cars next to us. Apparently, we hadn’t gotten the memo that it was white SUV day, since there were three white Range Rovers blocking my view.
“Nate has your best interests at heart. He always has. That’s why he sent you away from all this. You needed structure. Going to school and figuring out the sort of woman you wanted to be. That’s what Nate wanted for you.”
“Nate doesn’t even know me.” Frustration coated my words. “He hasn’t made an effort to get to know me. He just sent me off to school, told you to tag along, and kept living his life while I wasn’t in it.”
He glanced at me. “I didn’t realize Nate was so important to you.”
“He saved me.” I shrugged. How could I explain that Nate hadn’t just pulled me out of a dangerous situation, but that in the weeks following, he’d made me feel safe in a way I never had, not even when I lived with my adoptive family? If I tried to tell Hargut, he’d probably brush it off as some sort of juvenile crush, and maybe I wouldn’t blame him. After all, I was eighteen and Nate was thirty-three. But the deepest part of me—the part that had an absentee mother, a father who was murdered before her eyes, and a life that only looked on the outside like it was normal—couldn’t shake the bond that linked me to Nate. He was the one I imagined holding me every night at boarding school as I struggled with my nightmares. And when I got older, I had plenty more imaginings that morphed from G to NC-17 at the speed of puberty. I’d never pictured being with anyone else. Nate and I were braided together, our threads intertwining from the first moment we met. I couldn’t explain it, but the link was real, and sometimes, when I’d remember the violence of my past on dark, lonely nights, that link was the only thing that kept me grounded.
The air had grown heavy between us as I’d sank back into blood-soaked memories, the car too quiet under the sound of the wind and the tires.
Hargut cleared his throat and drummed his fingers on the gear shift. “So, what sort of décor are you looking for?”
Grateful for the reprieve from my thoughts, I said, “Something blue maybe. Some light gray walls with a china blue bedspread is sort of what I’m envisioning.”
“Classy.” He nodded and turned onto the King of Prussia exit. “We can always get some different furniture, too, if you don’t like what—”
Gunfire shattered Hargut’s window, and he slumped over the steering wheel as the white Range Rovers hemmed us in. My scream was drowned out by the sound of metal on metal as the cars scraped alongside, guiding us to the shoulder and easing to a stop.
“Hargut!” I reached across the center console and shook him, but he lolled to the side, unmoving.
The SUV against my door backed up, and two men got out and approached. I felt inside Hargut’s coat and wrapped my hand around the butt of his gun as my window shattered and the door was wrenched open.
I pulled the gun from the holster and swung it around.
“You going to shoot me, little girl?” A thick Russian accent greeted me as the man at the end of my barrel smirked, his blond hair light in the sun but his dark eyes stone cold.