It’s only when we cross the train tracks that he pushes down on the accelerator. We don’t talk. I let him focus on driving. My stomach draws tight as we turn onto the gravel road next to the Kloof.
Soon, there will be fireworks.
Chapter 13
Ian
“What did you do?” I ask Cas as I park the truck.
I didn’t dare speak before for the fear of losing my cool and steering us off the road. If she put her life in danger—fuck. I can’t even think about it. Dragging my hands over my head, I turn in my seat and face her.
“I’d say Olga is back at the store by now,” she says. “Maybe she has a spare key for Mint’s office door, maybe not. Either way, it shouldn’t take her more than a minute to call for help.” She motions at my phone that lies in the console. “Check your hacker app.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She regards me quietly, chewing her lip.
“What did you do, Cas?”
Sighing, she lifts her ass, takes a velvet bag from her back pocket, and throws it at me. I catch it in mid-air. No fucking way. I untie the strings and peer into the bag. Diamonds. A lot of them. Enough to make Cas a diamond magnate.
A multitude of emotions run through my chest—admiration, pride, disbelief, and that godawful fear. It’s the fear that hooks its claws into me.
“You took a risk,” I say, jostling the stones as I shake the bag in front of her face. “He could’ve pulled a gun or alerted the security company.”
“I know Mint. I know his store. He doesn’t own a gun, and I made sure he didn’t get near the panic button.”
“There are cameras.” I slam a hand on the wheel. “Fuck, Cas. You should’ve told me the minute you left the store.” I grapple for my phone. “I need to call Leon. We need to hack into the feed and wipe it out.”
She places a hand on mine, stilling me. “I broke the security monitor and made him throw his laptop out of the window. A beggar ran off with the broken laptop. Recovering the hard drive is very unlikely. By now, it’s long since dismantled and sold.”
“That wasn’t the plan.” I gnash my teeth so hard the joints of my jaw ache. “You were supposed to stay in the camera’s blind spot and not show your face. That was the plan.”
“I improvised.”
“It was an uncalculated risk,” I say through clenched teeth. “You deviated from the plan, a plan we fucking worked out to the last detail. Stealing the diamonds was a last resort. You said so yourself. Stealing was supposed to be my job.” I stab a thumb on my chest. “My risk.”
Throwing the diamonds in her lap, I curse under my breath. I’m shaking with the knowledge of what could’ve happened, but I’m also suffering from a persistent hard-on elicited by her ballsy act. I want to spank her for being so irresponsible and kiss her for being so brave.
I blow out a long breath, trying to get a handle on my emotions. Before I met her, I never had a problem with keeping control. Emotions are exactly why involving Cas is a risk. I’ve always taken uncalculated risks when I’m around her, because she fucks not only with my body but also with my head. The fact that we’re sitting in the truck and having this discussion when I should be checking the app on my phone is proof of that.
“Fuck, Cas.” I still can’t believe she did that.
She looks toward the mountain. “He said I wasn’t mother material, okay?”
What? My chest squeezes. That lousy son of a bitch. Of all the things he could’ve said, he said the one thing that would hurt my girl most, because of all the things in the world, it’s the one thing she can never be, at least not biologically. It makes me want to turn the truck around, grab him by his scrawny neck, hand out a few punches, and shoot him in the kneecaps.
Gripping her chin, I force her gaze back to me. “I’m proud of you. You did well.”
A smile threatens to break through the bleak expression clouding her face. “Do you mean that?”
I exhale another shaky breath. “Yeah.” Her smile is contagious. It looks good on her. I’m going to make her smile more often. “You make a good bandit.”
She tilts her face, escaping my touch, and slaps my arm. “Be serious.”
I laugh. “I am.” Fuck, yeah. It’s good to laugh. It takes off some of the edge. I motion at the bag in her lap. “What are you going to do with all those diamonds?”
She traces the stones through the velvet, staring at the bag. “Find a buyer, I guess. Maybe I’ll donate the whole lot to women unworthy of being wives.”
“Hey.” I twist a strand of hair that has escaped her braid around my finger. “You’re perfect. Forget that asshole and what he said. He’s not worth your anger.”
“You’re right.” Her mouth sets in a hard line. “Giving him any kind of emotion is giving him power he doesn’t deserve.”
I dip my head to catch her gaze again. “Do you want me to make him dead for you?”
“Ian!” She gives me a chastising look.
“Because I will.” I’m not joking.
“Cut it out.” She slaps my arm again. “Check your phone. Mint must be free by now. He must’ve called Wolfe.”
Reluctantly, I let the platinum curl slip from my finger. She’s right, of course. I do need to check the app, but we have time. I take my phone and unlock the screen. Instinct already tells me what the app confirms. Mint made the call. The app traced the call to Johannesburg. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Wolfe is lurking around Joburg looking for us. He’d be keeping tabs on Damian, hoping I’d show up there just as I had. The app planted a tracer on Wolfe’s phone, which verifies Wolfe hasn’t alerted any local authorities. He’s coming for us alone. As I expected, he’s not planning an arrest. If he’s coming alone, it’s because he’s planning on committing murder. Not if I get to him first.
The gravity of the situation I’m submitting Cas to sinks into my stomach. “Wolfe is in Joburg. It’ll take him about two hours to get here if he comes by car, which I’m putting my money on. He’s not spilling the beans about us. Government resources such as helicopters won’t be accessible to him.”
She nods, trying to hide her tension, but I don’t miss the little signs, like how she plays with the strings of the bag or saws her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Time to move.” I get out and come around to her side. When she opens the door, I take her hand to help her down. “Come here. Look.” I show her the truck’s key in my palm. Going down on my haunches, I leave it under the body of the truck on the top of the front tire. “If anything goes wrong, you take the truck and leave.” She’s already shaking her head before I’m done talking. “You have to promise me, Cas.”
She shakes her head more vehemently. “Nothing is going to go wrong.”
“No.” Straightening, I cup her cheek and give her the reassurance she needs. “Everything will be fine. Still, the key is here just in case.”
She stares at me with wide eyes, emotions awash in the hues of blue that bleed together like a summer sky on a crystal lake. She’s the blue of an ocean, the clear turquoise of a pool. Me, I’m the muddy brown of a river, the sins trapped at the bottom of a murky dam.