Page 124 of Liar

“I won’t have her in the middle of it.”

“Agreed.”

I glance over my shoulder. The SUV behind us has accelerated.Hayden never overreacts. This is real.“How did this happen?” I murmur, wondering how something that felts so right could turn so horribly wrong.

“The boy on the bike was a plant.”

I blanch. Dios, this is my fault. But what else could I have done? Allow him to frighten a little boy?

“Hayden—”

“Here we go.” Tires squeal as he turns the corner. He drives halfway up the road before hitting the breaks.

I scramble out.

“Low-key, Luciana,” I hear him say, but the door closes before I can reply. Javier and I hit the ground as the car takes off, crawling around the front of a parked pickup then flattening our bodies enough to slide beneath it.

I’m barely out of sight when an SUV and the Escalade behind it drive by. Beside me, Javier freezes, worrying men will jump out and we’ll be discovered. But that’s not the case. I release a long exhalation as the Sureños race by.

I have an unobstructed view of the road ahead, of our car and the two vehicles in pursuit. Hayden is a master manipulator. Outsmarting Ignacio shouldn’t be too hard.Don’t panic. Have faith.

“When they turn the corner,” Javier whispers, “we run.”

“Yes,” I agree. “Find the nearest bus stop and take it south out of town.”

“Low-key,” Javier adds. “Boss was clear we don’t draw attention or be too obvious.”

“Ignacio probably has men at the airport waiting for us.”

“Us. Not you. But Boss will kill me if ...”

I swallow hard because I know why he didn’t finish his sentence. Up ahead, a third pickup pulls horizontally across the road.

A barricade.

Blocking their escape.

It’s the ambush Hayden predicted.

“Mierda,” Javier repeats his earlier curse.

I can’t speak because Hayden isn’t slowing down. Does he plan on ramming into the vehicle? My world stops and everything seems to happen in slow-motion.

Diego throws himself out of the car, lands, and rolls to the sidewalk, then begins shooting at the pickup ahead. Miguel is right behind him and does the same.

The car races forward and collides into the pickup.

The SUV leading the chase is too close to stop and crashes into it.

Breaks squeal and the red taillights of the Escalade that follows it flash, as the driver slams on the breaks and tries to avoid the pileup. The tail end of the vehicle swings to the left sending the front end to the right, and it crashes sideways into the others.

Three Sureños jump out, guns drawn. They creep around the hood of the Escalade and disappear from site.

Where’s Hayden?

No. No. Impossible. He wrecked the car purposefully. He’s not in the mangled mess. He must have escaped like Diego did, before the collision.

Diego is now crouched down behind a broken car door, using it as a shield to block the bullets being fired at him. How many Sureños survived the crash?