Page 47 of You Can Run

Dante didn’t.

He angled toward the booth, slow enough not to draw attention, but direct enough that it was clear he’d made a decision.

If it wasn’t the right man, they’d find out quickly enough.

Dante slid into the booth, pulling Jessica in beside him.

Miller didn't look like a fed. He looked like a retired history teacher who had spent too much time in the sun. His eyes were a piercing, surgical blue. They moved over Dante, before settling on Jessica. He lingered on the ring.

“Her name is Jessica,” Dante said, his voice low.

The man didn’t look away. “Her name is whatever I put on the passport, kid. Right now, she’s a liability in a short dress.”

Jessica felt Dante’s arm tense beside her.

“Ryan told me you two were a package deal. A couple. Married.”

“That’s the story,” Jessica said, before Dante could.

The man let out a small breath, not quite a laugh. He lifted his glass, turned it slightly, then set it back down again.

“I’ve been doing this long enough to know the difference,” he said. “People who are tied together… and people who are just trying to survive the same situation.” His gaze moved between them. “You two don’t look settled.”

Jessica didn’t respond. Because she knew what he was seeing.

“What does that matter?” Dante asked.

The man leaned forward slightly.

“It matters because the people looking for you know who you are,” he said. “What they don’t know is who you are when no one’s watching.” He tapped the table once. “If I move you, you go somewhere small. You argue, someone hears it. You sleep apart, someone notices. You slip once…” He shrugged. “That’s enough.”

Jessica looked down at her hand. At the ring. It didn’t feel like a prop anymore. It felt like a condition.

“You want to disappear?” Miller asked, his eyes boring into hers. “Then you have to commit. You don't get to be 'friends' or 'partners.' You have to be the real deal. You eat together, you sleep together, and you die together. If you can’t handle the weight of that, walk out now and take your chances with the highway.”

Jessica lifted her chin. “We can do it.”

The man’s gaze shifted to Dante. “Can you?” he asked. “Or are you going to make this harder than it needs to be?”

Dante didn’t answer right away. Jessica felt the tension build in him, like something he was forcing down instead of letting out. For a second, she thought he might push back, might challenge the man across the table.

Then, slowly, his fingers uncurled. He reached out and covered Jessica’s hand with his, his palm hot and heavy. “She’s my wife,” Dante said. He didn’t look at her when he said it. “Do what you gotta do.”

EIGHTEEN

The speedometeron Trent’s Dodge Ram climbed steadily upward in a rhythm that matched the pulse in his temples.

He pushed past eighty-five on Highway 35, the Coastal Bend flattening into a blur of asphalt, scrub, and low, wind-bent trees. Every slow-moving car felt like a personal insult, something placed in his path to test him. He didn’t signal when he passed. He didn’t ease off the gas when the road curved.

All he thought about was that red ’Cuda. So bright and loud and impossible to miss. He wouldn't need a tracker to find it. Dante was an idiot—he might as well have painted a target on the hood.

He took the turn toward the Blue Water Highway, cutting away from the heavier traffic and onto the slower coastal road. The Gulf air rolled in through the vents, thick with salt, the sky ahead darkening under a bank of storm clouds.

The landscape flattened even further, the road running parallel to the water in long, exposed stretches. There was nowhere to hide out here.

Good.

He crossed onto the island through San Luis Pass, the truck rocking slightly as the wind caught it. Below, the water churned in slow, muddy swells, the tide pulling hard against the pylons.