Page 96 of Stand: Part One

The exchange happened so quickly, I didn’t even have time to process what I had just experienced. Car chase. Shoot-out. Adrenaline rush.

Holy fuck, adrenaline rush.

“Are you hurt at all, Mrs. Davis?” the driver suddenly asked.

It took my brain a few seconds to process something other than what I could still see from the back of the window. There were still plenty of gunshots to be heard in the background.

“Huh?”

“He asked if you were hurt,” the front passenger answered.

Turning to address him, I found myself looking at some very familiar faces. The driver and his companion in the passenger seat were identical twins, the very same twins who chased me down in Darren’s Ducati the night I had escaped from his estate.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Good, ’cause we’re not medics,” the passenger replied, drawing a chuckle from his twin brother.

Seeing the opportunity dangling, I snatched it. “If you’re not medics, then what are you?” I remembered how they drove the night they chased me—like a couple of professional stunt drivers. They couldn’t be just regular guards.

Both men snickered. “You can think of us as…special delivery drivers.” I detected a hint of an accent from both of them. New York, maybe? Or Boston?

“Delivery drivers, eh? The same delivery drivers who chased me down the night I stole Darren’s Ducati?”

They both snickered like teenagers.

“Oh, yeah! Now, that was a fun night,” the driver commented. “When you flew through both of our cars the way you did? Brilliant.”

“Yes, very impressive.”

I frowned. Darren’s staff didn’t typically praise me for my recklessness. These two were weird.

“Thanks, I guess?”

“We hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. You really had us going for a bit. Everybody else just crashes within the first few minutes, so thanks for the prolonged entertainment.”

My frown deepened. Was chasing people down part of their jobs?

“You’re welcome?”

“We should seriously do it again sometime,” the passenger said enthusiastically. “I bet you’ve got some new moves under your belt by now.”

I arched a brow. Clive and Owen would absolutely lose their shit over these two.

Where the hell did Darren find these people?

26

Gun Powder and Death

Keeping the car door securely placed in front of me, I moved to place myself between my assailants and the engine of my now shot-to-shit car. Scott was already in the same position, firing from behind the safety of the engine of his SUV.

Crouching in place, I aimed my pistol and fired off two shots, one entering the skull of the driver and the other at the calf of his passenger. Scott clipped the third one behind the driver, which left only one of them without a bullet. Maybe two was better than one.

Throwing my shoulder to the ground, I aimed around the grill of my mangled Ferrari and fired off a round of shots into the legs of the last man standing. When he went down, Scott and I moved quickly before he could reposition his gun.

“Hands!” Scott shouted at the two men now struggling through their injuries. Kicking away the rifle nearest to me, I knelt and pressed my gun to the bullet wound on the man’s leg.

“Talk fast and I’ll make it quick,” I offered.