Page 47 of Conquered Betrayal
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You might laugh, but this is the kind of clothing I’m most comfortable in.”
“It’s true,” I agreed. “He wore loafers as a kid in gym class.”
He gave me an odd look. “And here I’d thought you only had eyes for Kane when we were young.”
My cheeks heated. “Trust me, the only kid in loafers in the whole school is kind of noticeable no matter who I had a crush on.”
That shut him up. He pressed his lips in a straight line.
“This is for you,” Alina said, passing him a Glock grip first.
He shook his head, holding his hands up instead of taking it. “I’d rather not.”
All three of us froze, matching tension in our bodies. We probably wore the same expressions of shock too.
It was Marley who managed to speak first. “You’re coming with us to infiltrate a property with potential hostiles but won’t take a gun?”
He tightened the fastenings of his Kevlar vest. “It didn’t go well last time.”
All three of us stared at where he’d been shot. I glanced at Marley and she narrowed her eyes at me. None of us could explain how quick his recovery seemed. It didn’t even look like he wore a bandage under his shirt.
A creeping awareness crawled up my nape, my intuition telling me something was off. I didn’t have time to explore the sensation because Alina was handing him a helmet, goggles, and a comm while Marley ushered us all into the freight elevator.
Together, Alina and I closed the outer heavy door, then the inner gate. When Marley hit the down button, the car clanked, then began to move. All that was missing was the canned music to make it awkward as hell. Alina kept glancing at Landon’s billowing sleeves out of the corner of her eyes, biting her lip to keep from laughing. Even Marley’s mouth was twitching. I shook my head at them both.
Landon took it all like a champ. He’d never cared about what people said about him in school, and I didn’t think he cared now. He was who he was. Maybe the one person I could say who seemed a hundred-percent comfortable in his own skin. What you saw was what you got.
The elevator rumbled and creaked to a stop. Marley opened the two metal doors, and we all stepped out into the garage. The space mimicked the size of the warehouse above, and was honestly too big for our uses. Alina’s Fiat sat up on blocks while she fixed it, and we’d parked the van near the elevator doors. Otherwise, it housed a lot of the unused renovation supplies we’d stored and some forgotten items from previous owners who’d bought it as a storage facility for their staging business.
Marley clicked the key fob. The Mercedes van blinked at us under the flickering fluorescents. Opening the door, she hopped into the driver’s seat, Alina taking the passenger side, which left the bench in the back for Landon and me.
It was a tight squeeze. Normally meant only for one person, the space pressed us against each other. My whole side fired up being in contact with his, especially where the Kevlar didn’t cover: my shoulder, arm, and hip.
The engine purred. Marley shifted into drive and headed toward the garage door.
Landon jerked his chin toward the other side of the van. “I’m seeing a lot of Urick Enterprises’ tech in front of me.”
Alina turned. “We’re fans. Good quality at competitive prices.”
“Not another advertisement,” I grumbled.
“It’s the truth,” Marley added over her shoulder, the garage door rising in front of us.
I narrowed my eyes at them both and muttered, “Ass kissers,” under my breath, which I’m pretty sure Landon heard because he raised an eyebrow.
The van jerked forward. Marley drove up the ramp, then turned right into the darkened road beyond. There weren’t a lot of working streetlights on this stretch of road. With the next left turn, the motion pushed me against Landon. My heart sped up at the contact. Was he as aware of me as I was of him?
A slight turn of his body, and suddenly, I was plastered more to his side. I squinted up at him, gauging whether he’d done it on purpose or not. He faced the surveillance equipment, not looking at me, the helmet and goggles Alina had given him clutched in his hands.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked, keeping my voice as quiet as possible so the other two wouldn’t butt into the conversation.
He turned, met my gaze, and nodded once. “I sent Walker to do my dirty work, and it was a mistake. I need to do this.”
I didn’t have the chance to ask him to clarify, because Alina leaned forward, touched the dial for the radio, and rap music began to pump through the sound system.
We left Metro Detroit behind. Our headlights cut a path in the darkness, the oncoming traffic becoming sparser the further we drove. Landon leaned his head against the wall of the van. From all appearances, he rested his eyes, but the movement pressed his side even tighter against mine.
I didn’t move away.
