Page 141 of The Best Shot

Shaun was already at the truck.

The driver’s door open, his phone angled toward the dash as he bent beneath the steering wheel. Every movement was quick and jagged. He wanted out of there bad.

He must have tried the ignition the second his ride pulled away and gotten nothing but crank. He could crawl around under that dash all night and never find the problem. I’d pulled the fuel-pump relay and slipped it into my pocket.

Gravel shifted beneath my boots, and his head came up.

Recognition moved across his face.

Shaun stood a few inches under six feet, thick through the shoulders and chest, with a build owed more to genetics than discipline. He had Yasmine’s deep-brown skin, her dark eyes, and the same high cut through the cheekbones. Everything else was heavier.

None of her softness survived in him.

“You,” he said.

“Shaun.”

He straightened slowly, phone still in his hand, its light swinging across the gravel. His gaze moved past me to Annie and narrowed.

“And you.” He gave a humorless laugh. “You bring an audience?”

“She brought herself.”

His eyes came back to me. “You do this?”

“I did a lot of things tonight. Had to make sure you stayed long enough to listen.” I stopped three feet away, hands loose at my sides.

He shifted his weight. “Listen to what?”

“Take a guess.”

He glanced toward the men sitting on their bikes nearby, beers hanging loose from their hands.

The men wouldn’t get involved, but they did put a satisfying knife of urgency against his ribs.

Truth was, I could’ve done this in Shaun’s driveway. But he liked letting himself into places he hadn’t been invited, and I wanted him to know how that felt somewhere less forgiving than his sister’s apartment.

“I don’t know what she told you⁠—”

“No.”

His mouth twisted. “No?”

“I’m not interested in whatever comes after that sentence.”

“She came at me screaming. You want the whole story or just her half?”

“I don’t want any of it. Save it for story time with Mommy. I just need you to hear me when I say this next part. Then I’m going home.”

The hand holding the phone went tight.

“No contact means no contact.” I kept my voice cold, because that was the only thing I trusted myself to be. “You don’t call her. You don’t text. You don’t show up at her house, her job, or anywhere you think she might be.” I stepped closer. “And since you’re so good at getting your mother to fight your battles, you tell her to back off too. Yasmine’s not yours to think about anymore.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You don’t get another warning.”

He tilted his head, studying me, and I saw the moment he found where he thought the soft place was. A mean smile pulled at his mouth. “You really believe everything she tells you, don’t you?”