Glancing back once more, she saw the same military truck barreling down the crappy trail. She didn’t need Gus to tell her to put the pedal to the metal. Even though she was already going too fast for the road conditions, she pressed a little harder on the gas. Her eyes narrowed and she focused solely on the road ahead of her. She could do this.
Had pretty much trained for this exact moment.
There was a small opening in the back window of the truck, letting Gus talk to Woody and Tiny. “Pull over and let me drive!” Tiny yelled.
But Reese wasn’t stopping. No way.
“She’s good!” Woody yelled back.
“She’s not trained for this!” Tiny protested.
“The hell she’s not! She’s got this. I fucking promise.”
Her brother’s faith in her felt good, and while Reese was fairly confident in her abilities, she hadn’t ever been in a situation where her driving skills were a matter of life or death. The bullets those men were firing from the truck weren’t blanks. If one of them got off a lucky shot and took out a tire, they were all fucked.
Isabella bent over almost in half, covering her head and praying under her breath.
“You’re doing good, Reese,” Gus said in an almost normal tone of voice.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins—and suddenly, Reese felt like she had years ago, while participating in the Grand Prix race at her university. Though she felt the need to explain why her brother was confident she could get them away from the assholes chasing them. If for no other reason than to assure Gus.
“I was one of the very few women drivers in the annual go-cart race at my university,” she said, loud enough to be heard over the noise of the wind whooshing through the cab. “There was a lot of trash talking from the male drivers. Purdue University takes their Grand Prix seriously. It’s a huge deal. My engineering club decided to enter. Hold on!” she yelled suddenly.
Reese swerved around a huge rut in the road that would’ve sent them airborne if she’d hit it dead-on. She spared a glance behind her to make sure all three of the guys in the back were still there, sighing in relief when they were. Turning her attention back to the road, she continued her story.
“I was picked to be the driver for our club and in the end, placed third…much to the amazement of the other drivers. Our car wasn’t the flashiest, wasn’t the most expensive or even the fastest, but I was the best driver on that track.” She wasn’t bragging. Okay, that was a lie. She was bragging a little. The memory of how surprised everyone had been that a woman placed, especially one who wasn’t a member of the popular fraternities and sororities that usually dominated the race, was a fond one. She liked doing things no one expected of her…and succeeding.
But this wasn’t a go-cart, and she wasn’t a college kid participating in a fun, harmless race.
Reese used everything she’d ever learned about cars and racing—and her determination not to let her brother get kidnapped again—to pull away from their pursuers. She didn’t care that they were being bounced around like pieces of popcorn in a microwave, all she cared about was getting away.
“In case I forget to tell you later, you’re fucking amazing. We’re almost back to the main road. Take a left,” Gus said calmly.
It was a good thing he knew where they were, because Reese might be a good driver, but she had a shit sense of direction. She didn’t remember which way she was supposed to go and probably would’ve gone right instead of left.
She made the turn, barely keeping the truck from sliding off the side of the road into a ditch, and floored it when they were once again on asphalt.
Seconds later, a loud whoop sounded from the bed of the truck, and Reese looked in the rearview mirror fearfully.
“They didn’t manage the turn! They’re in the ditch! Good job, Reesie!”
Reese hated that nickname. “I’ve told you a million times not to call me that!” she shouted back at her brother in irritation.
She heard him laugh uproariously.
Her heart was still pounding ten minutes later when they pulled onto the highway that would take them back to Bogotá. She felt jittery and a little weak, but figured it was the drop from the adrenaline rush she’d experienced.
“You’re okay,” Gus said from her right. “Take a deep breath. Good. Now another.”
Having him there to talk her down was a relief. She concentrated on the cadence of his voice rather than reviewing what just happened in her mind. “Is Woody all right? Isabella, are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” the woman replied softly.
Reese barely heard her over the rushing of the wind through the broken window behind their heads. She hated that the three guys were in the bed of the truck, because it was anything but safe, but there wasn’t much choice since the pickup didn’t have a backseat.
“For the record…anytime you want to drive, I have no problem with that. I don’t think anyone could’ve gotten us out of there in one piece like you did,” Gus told her.
His praise felt good. Really good. She’d wanted to hold her own, and show this man that she wasn’t helpless. Until now, she’d been a liability, and they all knew it. She might not know how to shoot, or be in shape enough to run a mile, but she’d been able to get them away from the bad guys because of her experience. She figured that tipped the scales in her favor, at least a little bit.
“Where are we going?” she asked, forcing herself to concentrate on what was to come. She might’ve gotten them away from the cartel guys, but there was no telling what would happen now.
Instead of answering, Gus turned to the woman sitting between them. “Isabella, you and your brother have a choice. Do you want to come with us? Or stay?”
She looked at him. “I want to stay with Woody.”
Gus nodded, then turned to yell out the back window. “Woody?”
“Yeah?”
“Are Isabella and her brother staying with you?”
“Hell yes!”
“Spike, we have an issue,” Tiny called out.
“What?”
“Woody was hit.”
Reese’s blood ran cold, and she instinctively took her foot off the gas at the same time Isabella gasped and turned, trying to look out the back window.
“I’m fine!” Woody called out. “I told him not to say anything!”
“How bad?” Gus yelled.
“Not great,” Tiny said. At the same time Woody yelled, “A scratch!”
“Head toward the airport,” Gus told Reese firmly.
Reese took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot him a quizzical look. “Shouldn’t we go to a hospital?”
“I’d rather get the hell out of here. We have no idea what kind of connections those guys have, and if they’re with the cartel, I’m guessing it’s a lot. Going to a hospital will bring too much attention to us. There’s no way we could hide an American with a gunshot wound.”
“But Tiny said he wasn’t good,” Reese protested.
“Woody’s a tough son of a bitch. And Tiny didn’t say he was critical. We’ll get him help as soon as we can.”
Reese wanted to keep protesting, but she didn’t exactly want to go through another shootout. Or be on any drug cartel’s radar.