Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3)

And now this polished, prissy motherfucker was going to threaten him? Take him down? What the hell?

“I’ve about had enough of this dancing around the issue shit,” Zack growled. “Someone is going to tell me what the fuck it is I supposedly did to Gracie twelve years ago. Because looking at things from my side? I got dumped. Not only did I get dumped but I didn’t even get the courtesy of a ‘have a nice life’ or ‘goodbye.’ Not even a ‘fuck off, I never want to see you again.’ I got nothing. So for twelve years—twelve fucking years—I’ve thought the worst. And believe me when I say I have a rather vivid imagination. Then I finally locate her, only she’s not hurt. She doesn’t need anything. She’s happy. Started a new life. But the icing on the cake? She acts like I’m some kind of goddamn monster. Like I’m going to hurt her when she knows it’s the last fucking thing I’d ever do. I would have given her the entire world, but she pissed that into the wind when she disappeared, leaving me to think the absolute worst.”

Sterling stirred and looked very much like he wanted to start round three. Zack bristled, every muscle in his body tensing in readiness. Sterling wanted a fight, and Zack was spoiling to give him one.

“Damn it, you two!” Eliza exclaimed. “Swear to God, the next one to throw a punch is going to get shot. I wouldn’t even be prosecuted. They’d consider me to have saved the world from Dumb and Dumber here.”

“You are not helping, Eliza,” Zack said through his clenched jaw.

“Listen up, because we don’t have a lot of time,” she said in a brisk voice. She pointed her finger—the one not curled around the trigger of her pistol—at Sterling, irritation evident in her eyes and words. “You’re coming with us.”

“No—!”

The automatic denial was said simultaneously by both men. Zack shot the other man a glare and then turned his glare on his current pain in his ass.

“You’re right. We don’t have a lot of time, which is why I’m not wasting it on his sorry ass,” Zack said, gesturing toward Sterling.

“The only place I’ll follow you to is hell,” Sterling bit out. “Just to make sure you stay there.”

“Shut up! Jesus. And they say women never shut up,” Eliza grumbled. “Now get in. Both of you!”

She gestured with the gun, indicating that Zack and Sterling should both get into Zack’s SUV.

“You drive, Zack. Don’t give a fuck where. But long enough that I can have a little chat with our friend here and so I can keep a gun on him in case he decides to do something really stupid like pissing me off even more.”

“You’re serious?” Zack asked in clear astonishment.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Sterling didn’t look any more pleased than Zack but it was clear he had a healthy respect for the gun Eliza held.

Eliza yanked open the door to the backseat and pointed her gun at Sterling, then whipped it sideways, motioning for him to get in.

Sterling emitted a string of curses and Zack could swear he heard the other man mumble something about crazy-ass women with guns. If this weren’t such a what-the-fuck moment, Zack would laugh at the other man’s bemusement. It was always fun to watch people’s realization that Eliza wasn’t a harmless ball of fluff. She was always underestimated, a fact she’d told Zack had benefited her on more than one occasion.

Shaking his head and having his own sour thoughts about women—a particular woman—with guns, Zack climbed into the driver’s seat and cranked the engine.

“Where we going, Lizzie?” Zack asked in resignation.

He absolutely believed she’d shoot one or both of them. She wouldn’t kill them, but she’d certainly do some minor damage. She was a crack shot and could hit a target the size of a dime smack in the middle. So if she decided to permanently rearrange a guy’s balls, he knew she was absolutely capable.

“Don’t care,” she muttered, obviously still aggravated. “I need a few minutes and then you can drop him back off a block from here and let him walk back to his vehicle. By then the cops will likely be here.”

“And I’m supposed to explain how I arrived on foot at an apartment complex I don’t live in, to my vehicle that is parked there?” Sterling snapped.

“That’s your problem, not mine,” she said sweetly. “I’m sure you’ll have no interest in talking to the cops, seeing as you assaulted one of the tenants. A night in lockup might do you good, although you’d be sprung in under an hour, I’m sure.”

“Thirty minutes,” he snarled. “And so help me, you little wench. This isn’t finished, nor will I forget it.”

“Yawn,” she said, dragging out the word as if she had indeed yawned.

“So speak, Lizzie,” Zack said impatiently. “We don’t have all night.”