Page 19 of Fractured Hearts

I hold back a laugh. If she wasn’t fucking my future husband, I might like her. She beats her small fists on my back, and that does make me chuckle a little. I had to throw her over my shoulder so I could get her back to my car. Running with her in a bridal hold would’ve been faster, but she wouldn’t stop trying to get down. If I run with her like this, I risk breaking her ribs.

“Where are you taking me?” she yells again.

“Safe house.”

“Who are you? Jason Bourne? Normal people don’t have safe houses.”

“There’s nothing normal about me, baby.”

“No fucking shit,” she mutters under her breath. “Don’t call me baby!”

Jason’s house is a fifteen-minute walk from mine. I didn’t take my car because I wanted to be able to clear my head in the fresh air on the way to the meeting. I’m having regrets right about now. It takes even longer to get inside because I have to sneak around the back and check to make sure no one is watching me haul a raging blonde woman into my house. Although Jo stopped screaming at me once she noticed we were close to civilization again. She’s smart, I’ll give her that much.

The moment I get inside my house, I drop her down on the counter and hand her a reusable grocery bag.

“Grab whatever food you can. Try not to put pressure on that ankle.”

“Where are you going?” she asks as I leave her in my small kitchen and head to my bedroom. I ignore her and grab my go-bag. I quickly grab a second bag and shove extra clothes into it. None of them will fit Jo, but we can’t exactly stop to go shopping.

“Let’s go,” I say, grabbing the bag she filled and wrapping my arm around her waist to help her walk to the door.

“Don’t touch me!” she yells, trying to pull away, but I keep a strong grip on her.

“Will you stop fucking fighting me and let me get you to safety? Maverick just risked his life for this! For you!” I don’t even try to keep the hurt out of my voice.

She freezes and then nods, allowing me to guide her out of my house and into my car without another word.

seventeen

JO

I sit on my hands to stop them from shaking. Maverick is okay. He has to be. My phone is somewhere in the rubble of Jason’s house, and I doubt Ezra is going to let me use his. He hasn’t exactly made his dislike for me a secret. Not that I’m overly fond of him either.

“Are you taking me out into the woods to murder me?” I ask after over three hours of driving. I’m tired and my whole body is sore. There’s a persistent ringing in my ears. The backs of my legs feel like they have the world’s worst sunburn. I’m too scared to look at my ankle, but it currently has its own pulse and probably its own zip code.

“As much joy as that would bring me, I don’t think Maverick would forgive me for killing his girlfriend.” Ezra’s voice is tight, and if I bothered to look at him instead of out the window, I’m sure I’d find him scowling.

Should I be the bigger person and correct him? Yes. Am I going to? Fuck no.

It’s another three hours before Ezra pulls off onto a dirt road. It was so hidden by trees I don’t know how he even knew it was there. I watch the headlights bounce off more trees before they disappear completely.

“Is that the ocean?” I squint, trying to make out what I’m seeing in the dark. “Is that a cliff?”

Ezra ignores me, slowly approaching an adorable cabin that’s now visible under his headlights. An adorable cabin that sits directly on a cliffside. The location does nothing to convince me he won’t just push me off and claim I fell. One less obstacle in between him and Maverick.

“Stay here,” Ezra says, throwing his car in park and grabbing something from the glove box.

“Is that a gun?” I hiss under my breath, not sure why I’m whispering. Or surprised, for that matter.

Ezra just ignores me. Again. The asshole.

eighteen

EZRA

I don’t really need to scope out the place. My dad set up top of the line security when we bought this house. It was the compromise we agreed on when I moved to Boston. He’d let me go without a fight if I had a safe house within driving distance. He has this entire property so wired up, a moose couldn’t fart within five hundred feet without me knowing. I quickly check the perimeter of the house anyway before making my way inside. It’s a small two-bedroom, two-bathroom Cape Cod with an open floor plan kitchen/living room area. The place was rundown when I bought it, so I had to hire a contractor to renovate it. I also hired an interior designer to fill the place with furniture. It looks like every beach house rental on the market, with its seashell and anchor knickknacks everywhere and blue and white color scheme. It takes me no time at all to make sure the house is free from intruders, human or animal, but I linger near the front door instead of going back outside.

I just couldn’t be in the car with Jo anymore. It’s not her fault, the way my stomach curls in on itself and my chest hurts every time I look at her. I know it’s not her fault Maverick moved on. I was gone, dead as far as he knew. But now she’s an obstacle. If that wasn’t apparent before, it became so the moment he begged me to save her over him.