Page 29 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune (The Wayward Sons #4)
N ow comes the hard part,” Sam was saying as we approached a navy sports car in the basement garage of the building. I stopped to glare at him. Yeah, I didn’t like the guy.
“Driving away is the hard part?” I demanded. “Maybe fighting a bunch of fucking vampires is the hard part.”
“Putting distance between us and them is,” he bit back.
“Three bets they kill each other before they reach the checkpoint,” Andrea commented. She rounded the back of the car, heading straight for one of the two motorcycles parked next to it.
“Please,” Nash scoffed. “They’re both too damn stubborn for that. Nah, they’re both goin’ to outlast each other just to say they did.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Sam retorted, the wave of annoyance in his tone twisting through my stomach. “Make sure we get the hell out of the city. After that, you know what to do.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Their whole way of keeping things from me was unwarranted and unwanted. But the fighting back didn’t seem to be working in my favor either. I didn’t like being put in the position they were putting me in. But what choice did I have?
“Be safe,” he said to the others as he reached for the driver’s side door. To me, he added, “Get in.”
I got in—not because he told me to, but because I needed to. And I understood exactly how petty my behavior came across. I trusted Gray, and if Gray agreed to partner with Sam and his team, I had to trust that, especially with how little he liked team ups. But I didn’t have to like it.
This stupid man in the driver’s seat had changed the entire trajectory of Gray’s life. He was the reason Gray went to jail.
“Get your head out of the fucking clouds,” Sam snapped. “I need you here with me if we’re getting out of here, not a million miles away plotting how to kill me when I’m not looking. Lives are at stake.”
“I know what’s at stake,” I said.
“I’m not talking about your life,” he cut me off, starting the car. “I’m talking about my team. You’re mad at me, I get it. You hate me because of what happened with Gray and me—”
“What you did to Gray,” I corrected.
“ Right ,” he drawled, a little bit of a Southern accent bleeding into the word. “I wouldn’t be here if Gray didn’t know. So, while you may be pissed, Gray signed off on this. Gray agreed to work with me and then some.”
“And then some?” I frowned at the wording. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He smirked but said nothing. It took everything I had not to hit him again to wipe that cocky look off his face.
“I swear to God if you did—”
“Gray didn’t do a single thing he didn’t enjoy,” he interrupted. “Put your seatbelt on, princess. I’d hate to see you fly through the goddamn windshield after all the work I’ve done to get your ass this far.”
I scowled but said nothing as I yanked the seatbelt on. He pressed a button on the dashboard screen, manipulating it until a map came up. The glimpse I got of our destination looked to be in the middle of nowhere. Where the hell was he taking me?
“Can you hear me?” Sam asked after pressing another button.
“ Loud and clear, ” Riley responded, his voice coming through every speaker.
“Good,” he said. “Any update on our bloodsucking friends?”
“ One dead, ” he told us. “ And the one you… ripped apart is still out of commission. ”
“It better be,” Sam retorted.
“ That leaves three on your trail. ”
“There were seven vampires, Riley,” he interrupted quickly, an uptick of panic in his voice. “Did you lose two vampires?”
“How the hell do you lose two vampires?” I demanded.
“How the hell do you end up as their target?” Sam shot back, glaring at me.
“ Are you two done? ” Riley cut in, his voice dripping with annoyance. “ Or should I just leave the vampires to get you? ”
“No.”
“ When you escaped the first building, they separated. ”
“Fuck.” Fuck was right. “We need a clear route out of here. How long do you need?”
“ Depends on how fast you can drive, ” he said. “ I have every stoplight queued up and ready to go. I’m just waiting on you. ”
Okay, that was impressive.
“Do they have a mode of transportation?” Sam put the car in drive, his fingers drumming on the gear shift. The idling engine rumbled under us as we waited for an answer.
“ I imagine they have to, ” Riley replied. “ I just haven’t pieced together what or how yet. You need to be careful. Be fast. Get out of there. ”
“That’s the plan,” he muttered. Outside his window, Andrea rapped on the window. The two exchanged a series of quick hand signals—things I couldn’t begin to understand. Maybe sign language? Whatever it was, they had a whole conversation within seconds. “Do you still have your gun?”
“I only fired one shot,” I told him.
“Good. Keep it ready,” he ordered.
“And you just plan to… what?” I checked my gun for good measure. Changing clothes and getting sprayed down with some weird magic had me off my game. The familiar weight of the gun was comforting, even if it wasn’t mine. “Drive like hell and hope it works?”
“More than half the trouble Gray and I used to get into involved driving like hell and hoping it worked.” He laughed, though there wasn’t an ounce of humor in his voice.
Instead, waves of anxiety rolled off of him.
That made two of us. As he navigated his way toward the exit, he reached over and muted the Bluetooth.
“Look, you being mad at me, I get. Hell, if roles were reversed, I’d punch you too—you have a hell of a right hook, by the way. ”
“Thanks,” I replied, not wanting to take the compliment.
“But right now, being pissed at me won’t help the situation,” he continued. “Like it or not, Gray trusts me—at least in some way he does—and right now that trust puts me right here, getting your ass to safety.”
“Why are you helping him?”
“Because I owe him,” Sam said in earnest. For the first time, I felt his guilt. And he should’ve felt guilty. “Now, let’s get you the fuck out of here.”