Page 29 of Final Exit

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t text and drive. It’s dangerous.”

She waited for the punch line. It didn’t come. “What are you, an altar boy? Give me the phone.”

He handed it over. “I was raised Baptist. We didn’t have altar boys.”

She rolled her eyes and balanced the phone on her knee. Keeping the gun in her right hand, she worked the phone with her left. It was awkward, but not impossible. “It’s locked. What’s your password?”

He told her and a few seconds later the image of Kade and a blonde woman stared up at her from the phone’s background. It was just like the photograph in her pocket.

“Who is she? The woman in the picture with you?”

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I want the photo back that you stole from my house.”

“I didn’t steal it. I... accidentally took it.”

“Well that’s a new one,” he drew out in an exaggerated drawl.

“It’s true. Tell me who she is and you can have it back.”

“Let me guess. You’reaccidentallyblackmailing me?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She pulled the picture out of her jeans pocket, grimacing when she saw the wrinkles in it. “I hope you have another copy. It’s a bit... bent.” She set it in the console.

He glanced down. His jaw tightened.

“I really am sorry,” she said.

He gave her a curt nod.

Did that mean he forgave her?

Did it matter?

She puzzled over that, then decided it did. She didn’t want to hurt him. Contrary to what he probably thought about her, hurtinganyonewas always her last resort. And, yes, she and Kade were enemies. But that was business, two professionals on opposite sides of a high-stakes war. Damaging a picture that obviously held sentimental value for him crossed into personal territory. And she deeply regretted it. She really should have been more careful.

If their roles were reversed, she’d have yelled and cursed at him. Her father used to tease her about her temper when she was a little girl, saying God gave her fiery red hair to warn those around her to beware. But Kade never seemed to lose his cool, even when he was upset. She couldn’t seem to predict what he was going to do next. And that made her nervous.

She turned her attention to his phone. But there weren’t any recent text messages.

“What’s the next road I should take?” he asked.

She told him as she idly scrolled through his older messages. Yeah, she was being nosey. But she was the one with the gun.

There were exchanges between him and various team leads, going back for weeks. He gave his men advice, information on their targets, and without fail reminded them over and over that if things got dicey, their orders were to pull back and abort the mission. The safety of his men,and the Enforcers they were going after, seemed equally important to him. Once again, not what she would have expected. He was an interesting man, intriguing, in more ways than one.

Careful not to be obvious, she studied him from beneath her lashes. To say he was her type was a no-brainer—he was any woman with a heartbeat’s type. Tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, with well-defined muscles that were in perfect proportion to his height, not outrageously overdeveloped like some bodybuilder’s might be.

Without the scars on his face, he would have been too perfect...GQ, like a model—which wasn’t her type at all. But with the scars, he appeared more dangerous, intent, and sexier than ever. He would have looked killer in a suit. But she couldn’t find fault with how he filled out a pair of jeans either.

Oh good grief, what was she doing? Wasting time, that’s what. Instead of lusting after Kade Quinn she should be focusing on finding Hawke, before it was too late. She looked down at the phone in her left hand, and it dawned on her that she had the power now to contact the man she’d wanted Kade to call earlier—the team lead who’d been assigned to capture Hawke. She flipped to the main screen and the last text that Kade had sent. After pressing the phone icon, she put it on speaker.

The first ring trilled.

Kade gave her a sharp look, then grabbed for the phone.

She yanked it out of his reach. “I have a gun. Or did you forget?”