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“We’resupposedto be back in downtown.”
“Let me out,” I demand and he doesn’t budge. In fact, he slips into the turn lane and heads onto the highway. “Ian!”
No response.
I reach for Missy’s phone, but he grabs my hand, stopping me.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.”
“What are you doing?” I jerk out of his grasp, and he just watches me, his jaw feathering as he takes us down the highway toward Malibu.
“I have to do this, Hannah.”
“Ian, no you don’t. Whatever you’re planning, please.” I can taste the panic in my voice.Feelthe guilt pouring off him, but still, he doesn’t stop.
Is he kidnapping me?
“You don’t understand!” he snaps, voice louder than I’veeverheard Ian get. Like he’s panicking. “They’ve got my sister. My fucking sister,” he whimpers, anger dissolving into tears.
“Ian, who?”
Fear seizes in my throat, my fight or flight reflexes working overtime to come up with a solution. I could duck out of the car, but we’re on the freeway and if the fall at this speed didn’t kill me, another car would.
“Hannah, the fucking cartel is after us.Youbrought them to us. I’m not stupid! Now they’ve got Jenna and I’ll be damned if I sacrifice her for you.”
“He trusted you,” I whisper, tears cracking in my voice. “Mason trusted you and you’re betraying him?”
“Yeah, and I gave him my all. Helping him with that fucking chop shop shit. Working late. Doing whatever I had to because that’s what friends do. And you know what he did? He traded it all in foryou. The source of all his problems.”
In a lot of ways, he’s right. I am the source of Mason’s problems. As much as he loves me and as much as I love him, I know it’s true. He’s put his life on the line for me countless times and yet, it’s never enough. There’s always someone or something else out to get me and who’s there to pick up the pieces? To take a bullet to protect me?
Mason.
“He cares about you, Ian. If you’re in trouble, we can help—”
“I don’t need your fucking help,” he spits, his earlier anguish turning to seething rage. “Haven’t you ever noticed you leave a trail of bodies wherever you go, Hannah? It’s no coincidence that your sister was exactly the same, only she didn’t act innocent when they fell at her feet.”
Tears burn in my eyes as the city lights of Los Angeles fade away behind us. As Mason fades away behind us.
“Stop.”
“No, face your demons, Hannah. You’re the one who created them.”
“Do you really think this is what Jenna would want?”
“Don’t fucking talk about her,” he grits, hand tightening on the steering wheel.
“What do you think she’ll say when she finds out you traded another person for her?”
“Shut the fuck up!” He bashes his hand against the steering wheel so hard, I expect the bones of his hand to splinter. “She wouldn’t understand. She’s just a kid. I have to do this,” he says quietly, almost like he’s speaking to himself.
“Mason will kill you when he finds out what you’ve done,” I whisper. Tears burn as they slip down my face, but I don’t move for fear of pissing him off even more. He’s a man on the edge and I don’t know if I would survive a crash going the speed we are on the highway.
“I’m doing him a favor. He’ll realize once you’re gone how toxic you are for him. His little poison apple.”
The gun in my pocket digs into my stomach as if it’s reminding me it’s there. I can’t shoot Ian. Ian who was nice to me when I first started at the shop. Who welcomed me. The Ian who’s Mason’s best friend.
I can’t do that.
