Chair seemed to be upon him instead of beneath him.
He’d send Enos to the Gordons. Enos would dispatch Quinn Ross to Heaven, where selfless men like him were sure to go. And the secrets of Montgomery Ross would be safe, as Ewan had vowed to keep them, if indeed they hadn’t already been told.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jules walked along the road trying to enjoy the lovely day and ignore the hitman who held her upper arm in his grip. She needed to enjoy the fresh air—the breath she shouldn’t still be breathing. Why hadn’t he killed her already?
The smell of pines and birch trees warming in the sunlight reminded her of Star Valley, Wyoming, where she’d grown up. She could just imagine the smell of campfires from the hunters, the sound of gun shots ringing out, echoing through the Grand Tetons that had been her backyard. She would have killed to have a shotgun in her hand at that moment. But all she had was her lucky stick.
Why hadn’t he taken it away?
If the hitter wasn’t all dressed up for a Scottish festival, it would be easy to believe they were just walking through some woods in the twenty-first century. But there was a different kind of quiet there. Was it just because it was Scotland? Or because it was Ancient Scotland? Or maybe it was quiet because everything was lush and heavy with moisture?
The road was uneven and had been cut deeply by flooding rain. The wild growth was so brilliantly green, it looked Photo-Shopped. It was like God was making up for the fact the country was so wet.
Sorry about all the rain. Here, I’ll tweak the landscape a little. It’s on Me.
The last minutes of her life could have been spent somewhere much worse, but the anticipation was killing her. She didn’t really want to remind him to kill her, but she wanted to know who she should thank for her Stay of Execution.
“Why am I still alive?” She turned and watched his face, hoping she’d be able to tell if he lied to her. She didn’t trust her own judgment much anymore. Not since Gabby had gone from father-figure to cold-hearted killer in a split second.
The hitter was more handsome than a killer should be, to her way of thinking at least. His hair was gorgeous and wild even though he’d tied it together at the back of his head. The loose copper ringlets were almost painful to look at when the sun hit them.
She tripped, but he caught her and helped her get her balance back. She expected his hands to be cold for some reason, but they were nice and warm.
Nice? Gah!
“Why are ye still alive? That’s a fine question,” he said, implying that she was a klutz and was lucky to have survived as long as she had.
"You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” He cocked a brow.
"Oh. I see. You’re going to pretend like you’re not a brutal son of a bitch who could snap my neck at the drop of a hat?”
He laughed. “Aye. I suppose I could at that. Though I’m only brutal when it’s called for.”
What was he trying to do? Get her to let her guard down? Get her to cooperate? Not a friggin’ chance.
"I know your kind. I know what you're like,” she said.
"Oh, do ye now?” He snorted.
"I do."
After the feds had taken her into custody, she’d begun to suspect the line between law and crime was as fine as that between love and hate, and some of the good guys weren’t on the side they thought they were on. In fact, Agent Dixon, on whose watch she’d escaped, had gotten pretty comfortable on that other side. He was willing to ignore all kinds of rules that were meant to keep her safe, especially if there was anything in it for him. He’d even teased her, said Gabby was probably pay a literal fortune to some agent willing to forget to lock a door and leave her long enough to get some take-out, like he’d done a dozen times already. But lucky for her, Gabby Skedros didn’t have the address. Yet.
She thought she’d been safe when she’d slept? She hadn’t been.
And the next time she and Dixon had been alone and the taunting resumed, she’d egged him on, told him just what she thought of him, gotten him all worked up. And when he’d lost control—grabbed her hair and even reached for his gun to prove how he held