True to her word, Sage didn’t fight him when he guided her back to the car. She didn’t make a sound, either. Not a word for two whole hours. It gave him a lot of time to stew.
You’re signing my death certificate.
As much as he wanted to see her held accountable for the crimes she’d committed, he didn’t think those crimes were bad enough to warrant a death penalty sentence. Unless there were others he didn’t know about…
Shit. Had she murdered someone?
He glanced over at her. She was slumped in the passenger seat, forehead pressed to the window as she silently watched the world pass by. Headlights and the occasional streetlamp splashed light over her face, and she looked…resigned. As if all the fight had left her.
If she had committed murder, that explained a lot. Certainly explained why she was so afraid of facing the authorities.
She was feisty, strong, and more than capable of taking care of herself in a world that hadn’t seemed to give her a break, but a murderer? He couldn’t reconcile that with the sweet, slightly troubled woman he’d known. Of course, the woman currently sitting next to him wasn’t the same one he’d known, either. She was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, and she was giving him a headache without even opening her mouth.
He was going to drive himself crazy trying to figure her out, so he shoved her out of his thoughts and tried to focus on… something else.
Anything else.
Unfortunately, the only other thing that came to mind was the call from Giuseppe Bellisario.
The call had all of his nerves jangling. Bellisario wasn’t going to give up until Vaughn did what the guy wanted, and if he kept refusing, things were bound to get ugly.
Hell, who was he trying to kid? It was already ugly. Bellisario had resorted to threats, and he was terrified his brothers might get caught up in this disaster.
Headlights flashed in his rearview mirror, too bright and too close for comfort. He glanced over his shoulder—a large SUV was barreling down on them. He switched lanes to get out of their way, but the SUV followed, riding his bumper even though there was no other traffic on the road. A knot tightened in his gut, and he stepped on the gas. The car bolted forward.
Sage jolted upright in her seat. “What are you doing?”
“We have a tail.”
She spun, stared out the back windshield, and her eyes widened. “They’re not being very stealthy about it.”
“That’s because they want us to know.”
In the bright white of the other vehicle’s headlights, he clearly saw the color drop out of her complexion. “They found me.”
He didn’t think so. More likely, this was Bellisario making a point, since he obviously had Vaughn followed. Still, it’d help to know who was after her in case he was wrong. “Who found you? Who are you running from?”
“I-I can’t—” She covered her mouth with one shaking hand and shook her head. “Please, Vaughn. Don’t let them take me.” Leaking tears, she met his gaze with true terror shining in her eyes. He didn’t think she could fake that level of fear, and he was completely powerless against it.
“Fuck,” he muttered and jammed his foot harder on the gas. There was no possible way for them to outrun the SUV in this car—not enough power under the hood—but they might be able to hide. All he needed was to put some distance between them and find an exit…
There.
The exit let off into the trees surrounding the highway, and there didn’t seem to be civilization anywhere in sight. He turned too fast onto the ramp at the very last second, and the car rocked. Sage didn’t make a peep of alarm, but she was white-knuckling the “oh shit” handle above the door.
On the highway behind them, the SUV screeched to a halt. He checked the mirror—the SUV was reversing to the exit ramp. An oncoming Mack truck would be very helpful right now, but no such luck. The highway was completely empty at this time of night.
“Hang on.” Vaughn ignored the stop sign as he swung into a right turn at the top of the ramp. The car whined at its mistreatment but stayed upright and didn’t die on him.
He turned onto the first dark road he spotted, drove out of sight of the main road, stopped on the shoulder, and shut everything off. Darkness folded around them, and with it came silence, save for the ticking of the cooling engine and Sage’s ragged breathing.
“Hey.” He groped around until he found her hand gripping the edge of her seat. He peeled her fingers off the leather and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, there’s no way they made it up the ramp in time to see us turn. They’re not gonna find us. We just have to wait them out.”
She didn’t move or say anything for several moments until her breathing finally slowed and evened out. She shifted away, tugging her hand free. “Thank you.”
He gave her another second to finish pulling herself back together. “You want to tell me what that was about?”
“No.”