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J enner didn’t want to be the one driving. He wanted to be in Tobias’s place, watching over his girl.

Well, their girl.

Or at least she would be once they got her to agree to this crazy idea. It wasn’t normal. It was going to cause huge waves if people found out.

But he didn’t fucking care.

Other people did it. Sure, they weren’t necessarily in the spotlight like he was . . . but, fuck it.

There was that country where reverse harem relationships were the norm. If this didn’t work out . . . if they couldn’t handle everyone judging and watching . . . then they’d just move there.

Fuck his career.

What was important was Immy.

This wouldn’t work if he was going to get jealous. They both had to be able to look after her.

And, frankly, it seemed like it might be a good thing that he had help taking care of her. Because his girl seemed to find trouble wherever she went.

Apparently, she’d been going to a fucking bar in the middle of one of the worst districts in Nashville and drinking with a bunch of criminals.

Who she thought were her friends!

Now, Immy could be naive and she liked to see the best in people, but even he hadn’t imagined that she’d think fucking criminals in a seedy bar were her friends!

“What?” Sampson asked. “Could you repeat that?”

“Lauren hit me with her car. I was walking out to my car to come home. I knew I had to speak to you guys. The way I left like that . . . it wasn’t cool to sneak out. Even though the copycat Deity has been caught. We hope.”

“We hope?” Jenner asked. “What do you mean, we hope?”

“Well, we don’t really know that the person they have in custody is the guy behind these pretend-Sentinels and the kidnappings.”

“Wait . . . was Lauren involved with a Sentinel or this copycat? How does she fit in?” Sampson asked. “Fuck! Should I have checked her for a tattoo? Maybe we should turn around.”

“We can’t turn around,” Tobias told him. “Immy is badly hurt.”

“I’m all right,” Immy said.

“You just told us that Lauren hit you with her car!” Jenner protested. “That is not all right, Immy.”

“Let me out. I’ll go back and check and you can send someone to get me once you get hold of Isaiah or Abe,” Sampson said.

“No!” Immy cried before moaning.

“Tobias!” Jenner snapped as though he thought the other man could do something about her pain.

He knew that he couldn’t, but it was killing Jenner that she was hurting and that there was nothing they could do.

“No one goes back,” she said in a breathless voice. “The gunman could still be out there.”

“What gunman?” Tobias asked.

“All of you shut up and let her talk. Immy,” Sampson urged.

“Lauren hit me with her car. Then she drugged me with something. Somehow, she got me into the back of her car and tied me up. My friend Dev saw her so he jumped in his truck and followed. When he got here, he drove in front of her and pulled his truck across her way, making her crash into him. Only, I think he stole the truck. Yeah, he stole the truck.”

“What the fuck?” Tobias muttered. “Could he not have followed her until she stopped somewhere?”

“Um, I don’t know. I didn’t ask him that.”

“Where did he go?” Jenner demanded.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he could stay.”

Likely because he was a fucking criminal!

Jenner tried to calm himself down. Even if he didn’t agree with this guy’s actions, at least he’d stopped Lauren and helped Immy.

“He said that he put, um, trackers on all of our vehicles, because he needed to know I wasn’t a plant or something. I don’t get what he meant. But we should maybe remove . . . the trackers. I think Dev could be a bit . . . unhinged.”

Jenner glanced over at Sampson. He couldn’t see much of his face, but he could tell that his brother had grown tense.

“We’ll do that,” Tobias said. “Although I have no fucking idea how he managed that. Or who he thought you were spying on him for. Gonna need to look into this guy.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “But just remember even though he’s . . . odd, Dev is my friend. He even took the cream I gave him for his hands. He called it balance or payment or something. I don’t really understand. Something about how the Devil never does . . . anything for free. I don’t . . . get it.”

Shit. She was starting to sound more breathless. And sore.

He hated this. Hated that she was in pain and he wanted to do something to help her.

Jenner tightened his hands around the steering wheel.

How the hell could this Dev guy be tracking them? Who was he? And why had he helped Immy?

“How did Lauren die, though?” Sampson asked.

“Um, well, Dev said you weren’t far away so he left in his, maybe stolen, truck.”

He’d just left her? Jenner was not liking this Dev guy.

“I was trying to figure out who to call when out of the trees stepped this guy . . . woman . . . I don’t really know if I’m honest. They were dressed all in black and they didn’t really look at me. They walked over to Lauren and . . . and shot her.”

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

The truck fell silent as they all tried to process that.

“He just shot her?” Jenner whispered, swallowing heavily.

“Lauren said some strange things. She said that she was taking me to someone. She was angry at me . . . because she blamed me for you firing her, Jenner. Said she’d have to reinvent herself again or something.”

Fuck.

Fuck!

This was all his fault!

Sampson shot him a look. “This isn’t your fault. She was obviously nuts.”

“Yeah, really nuts. I think she’d been trying to get rid of me for a while. Months ago . . . when we were in Atlanta, do you remember you said you wanted to go to dinner with me?”

Jenner frowned, wondering why she was bringing this up. “Yeah, I do. You were busy.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she said quietly.

“What do you mean, you weren’t busy?”

“You sent me a message telling me that something had come up and you couldn’t make it.”

“I . . . I don’t remember doing that.”

“Because I don’t think you did. Lauren said she did it. And that we were both so stupid . . . we didn’t even check in with each other.”

What. The. Fuck?

“Jesus, that fucking bitch,” Sampson said.

“Fucking bitch deserved to die!” Jenner snarled.

“Jenner,” she said sadly.

“No! Who knows how many other times she did that? How many times she faked messages between us to split us apart?”

“There might have been a few,” she whispered. “And she tried to warn me away from you. She told me that I would . . . ruin your career. I was a nobody and that you needed to be single or to be with someone like Amaya.”

Jenner slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel as he pulled into the street with the hospital.

“Wish she was fucking alive so I could murder her. And you are not nobody. You hear me? How could you ever believe you were nobody? You can’t be .

. . when you’re the reason I wake up each morning, the reason I keep moving forward, you’re in my head all day and all night.

Fucking air I breathe. It’s all you, Immy. All you.”