I paused, taking a breath and then turned my gaze from the window to the woman driving. “I’m not going to do that. I won’t do that. So I want to figure out a way for this to end. Not with me on the witness stand. Not with him in prison, for however long. If he’s as dangerous as everyone says he is, then he’s either going to be powerful inside of prison, or he won’t stay there for long. So I want this to end.”
I waited. I wasn’t waiting for Rosie to get it. She was smart. That much was clear. She knew exactly what I meant.
I was waiting for her to digest it, figure out whether she was going to be a part of doing something like this for a complete stranger she didn’t even like.
It didn’t take long for a response. And not at all one I expected. She grinned. Beamed. Full-on ear-to-ear.
“You know, I’m pretty good at reading people,” she began. “A result of how I grew up around all kinds of people, people that looked really fucking bad on the outside, but were mostly good on the inside. And I’ve learned the hard way that most of the people that look good, safe, straight off the bat, they’re gonna be the complete opposite. It’s my job to read people, to know them, figure out what column they fit into. I’ll say straight up, you fit into the ‘bitch’ column quickly—and not a good bitch.” Her eyes flickered over me. “I was pretty darn confident in my assumptions, but it seems I was wrong. And, honey, never in my life have I been happier to have been wrong.”
She started the car and screeched out of the empty parking lot.
We were speeding and back on the interstate before she spoke again.
She eyed me, speculative, curious, surprisingly not angry. “You know this is a bad idea, right?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Just checking,” she said before returning her focus to the road.
I waited for more, because everything down to Rosie’s shoes told me that she was a more type of woman.
Nothing.
“If you also know this is a bad idea, then why did you come?” I asked finally.
She grinned. “Because I love bad ideas, especially when they come with the promise of some action. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a wife and a mother, blah, blah, blah. But sometimes I really feel like killing sex traffickers in Venezuela, and this is the next best thing. Know what I mean?”
I didn’t know what she meant. But I smiled and said, “Totally.” After a pause, I asked, “Where are we going?”
Another grin from Rosie with mischief in her eyes. “We’re going to Amber, California, baby.”
The drive to California was very different than the one from there. Rosie had obviously decided that escaping my safe house and wanting to enact retribution for my best friend meant that I was cool in her books.
As much as I told myself that I didn’t need validation from another woman to confirm my decisions, I couldn’t help but sit straighter. Someone like Rosie approved of me. It was much like Harriet’s respect, something tough to earn, something to be treasured.
My heart pulsed with pain at the thought of the crazy old woman I’d never get to see again, never get to drink with, eat cheese with, watch fucking Twilight with. The grandmother I’d never had. Shit, the grandmother no one else had.
But just like Duke, just like that ranch in Montana, she was never mine.
Rosie cranked music louder than I’d ever heard a car stereo get up to. Not hard rock, like I expected someone like Rosie to listen to. Alanis Morissette and the fucking Spice Girls. She stopped for snacks, shared her lip gloss with me, smiled, pretty much acted like we were on a girls’ trip across the country and had been friends for years. Not that I was some celebrity that had gotten her and her company—which I gathered was a family—embroiled in murder, corruption, and danger.
Maybe that’s how people like Rosie knew you were solid.
Somewhere after we crossed the state line into Utah a call came through her Bluetooth.
“Here we go,” she said, grinning, turning down the music.
My entire body froze at the screen. “Duke calling.”
Despite the fact I’d stolen his phone, Rosie had somehow either known he was going to call from another number or was in fact, a very powerful witch.
“What’s up, cowboy?” Rosie answered, winking to me.
“Where is she?” Duke clipped, his fury carrying through the phone and the miles between us.
Rosie put her finger to her lips. “Who?” she asked innocently.
“Cut the shit, Rosie,” Duke snapped. “Anastasia’s gone. I know she hasn’t been taken because I would’ve found her fuckin’ corpse within the vicinity, which I just finished lookin’ for.”
My stomach lurched like I’d been punched in the gut with the pain and haunting in Duke’s voice. He’d woken up and looked around his family ranch for my corpse.
I was such a bitch.
Rosie was not as affected, or not affected at all. She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, dude. You don’t give me or our resident hacker much credit. If Kitsch was rolling up on you, we’d be giving you like at least an hour warning. She’s likely fine.”
Rosie was a good liar. Better than me, and that was saying something.
“She is, because I know she’s sitting right beside you.”
Rosie frowned, taking her eyes off the road for a disturbing amount of time checking random spots in the car for what I guessed was a hidden camera. “You couldn’t possibly know that,” she snapped. “I have this car swept for bugs weekly.”
“I don’t need a bug to know that my woman got the fucking wild idea that she’d be saving us by running away and getting out of danger. I also don’t need a bug to know my woman is smart, so she likely went into my phone, found the number of the one person fucking stupid and reckless enough to drive across the country and take her fuck knows where for revenge.”
Rosie blew out an impressed breath. “Dude, no offense, but that sounds like you think a lot of a movie star who doesn’t know a thing about danger and just the right amount about me, who does. But I’m a mother and wife now. I wouldn’t dream of doing something so stupid.”
“I called Luke first,” Duke shot back, without even a pause. “Said he woke up to a note that said, and I quote, ‘gone to do some vigilantism. Be back later.’”
Rosie scowled, pressed the end call button and muttered “that fucking traitor.”
She tapped at the screen, only paying vague attention to driving as she swerved through traffic. Arguably, I should’ve feared for my life, but I felt as safe with this woman as I did with Duke. That, and I was fascinated to see what she was doing next.
“Calling Husband/Traitor” lit up the car screen.
There was barely a ring before a voice answered.
“You’re in deep fuckin’ shit,” a voice growled. The voice was attractive, like caramel, smooth, manly, all-over alpha.
It belonged to the man who had been sitting next to Rosie that night a million years ago. He was the only one who’d never been on my mental list. Something about him just seemed too...good. He wouldn’t participate in something like this. And he definitely didn’t sound like he wanted his wife to be doing it either.