Page 5 of Conquered Betrayal
He swiveled away when I tried to take his arm again. “I don’t think so.” He scowled. “Start talking. Now.”
I returned the scowl. “We need to move. Now.” It was probably childish to imitate his voice, but I couldn’t help it.
“Who’s Lover Boy?” Alina’s voice purred in my ear through my comm. One of my best friends, she might look unassuming when a person met her, but she was deadly as hell. “He sounds sexy.”
Spinning on my heel, I headed toward the other end of the alley. “I don’t have time for this.” Like I’d hoped, Landon followed.
“Whoa. Hold up. You’re just going to leave them like that?” he asked, catching up.
“Hell yes.” And I hoped I never saw them again. I didn’t have time to get arrested for attempted murder, or manslaughter, or whatever it would have turned out to be—especially because I wasn’t a US citizen.
“They attacked us with guns. Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Hell no.” With my luck, the whole Detroit police force was probably on Emerson’s payroll.
“Who is this guy?” Marley, my other best friend and a tech wizard, asked through my earpiece. “And why did he fuck up our op?”
The bigger question was, why Landon was staking out the MBI building. The fact that he was here, in Detroit, blew my mind. When I’d left Alaska and escaped my brother, Walker Hayles had told me someone was looking for me. I’d guessed it was Landon because he was our common denominator, but I’d hoped to hell I’d been wrong.Guess not.Sometimes I really hated being right.
I turned left out of the alley, heading toward where I’d parked. Landon blocked me with his body, the scowl on his face more intense than before. “You have some explaining to do.”
What I really needed to do was get out of here, but I understood he would make it difficult no matter what I said.
Keeping my face blank, I nodded. “I’ll explain whatever you want, just keep walking.” The more time we spent in the area, the higher the likelihood Emerson would track us down. I wasn’t sure if he was in Detroit right now, but I knew he was searching for me. I knew he wanted to kill me. If I’d had any doubts he understood the depths of my defection, what I’d done to his two thugs cleared that right up.
I skirted past Landon and kept walking, my gaze averted from those strolling down the sidewalk. Had anyone heard those gunshots? Or would they think a car backfired?
Landon matched my pace. Shoulder to shoulder, we trucked down the street. Tension climbed up my spine and nape as I waited for him to tear into me. I felt his eyes on me and kept mine forward. My skin heated, a flush spreading over my cheeks.
As we neared the corner, he finally spoke. “You stole from me.”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation. If he’d figured it out, there was no point in lying.
He paused, like he hadn’t expected me to be truthful, then jogged to catch up. “The whole reason you worked for me was to steal?”
We crossed against the light, then headed south. “In a manner of speaking, yes.” I couldn’t give him more than that right now even if I wanted to. And I definitely didn’t want to see the betrayal on his face I knew must be there. My hand clenched on the strap of my satchel.
“Everything.” He cleared his throat and started again. “Everything between us was a lie.”
That stopped my feet, my heart jumping into my throat. I met his gaze, finding his eyes the deepest of browns, almost black, my stomach squeezing at his wounded expression. “Not everything.” I might have lied to him for a year, but what I’d felt for him,trulyfelt for him, was real.
The day I left Vancouver, left Landon, I hadn’t thought I’d ever see him again and it had hurt more than I thought anything ever could. Physical pain, the things I’d endured at the hands of my brother, was nothing compared to how much my heart broke when I stepped on that plane.
And this was absolutely not the time to get into it, not out in the open. I needed to get Landon somewhere safe and regroup with Marley and Alina.
“Come,” I said, jerking my head in the direction I’d parked the Fiat I’d borrowed from Alina. I’d left it close enough to the MBI building to grab it in a quick escape, but far enough away the plates wouldn’t be scanned and flagged by Emerson’s security.
Not that I really wanted to circle back to his building, but I didn’t see an alternative right now. Landon fell into step beside me, and I glanced at him. “Do you have a car?” I should have asked that first. Maybe it had been closer.
I felt the pressure of his gaze with every step we took, the scrutiny of a CEO assessing his opponent over a conference table. “I walked from my hotel.”
The Fiat it is.
“What’s the plan?” Marley asked in my ear. “We’re leaving for the van now in case you need backup.”
I cleared my throat, keeping my eyes forward. “Understood.”
Out of my peripheral vision, Landon whipped his head toward me, his brow furrowed.
