Page 11 of Iron Shield
“Three if you’re efficient.”
“No.”
“One minute if you run and just grab my whole laundry basket.”
“We’re not going to your apartment.”
Her eyes flashed. Though it was dark in the car, he knew they were green around the edges and gold near the center. They shifted with the light until he couldn’t settle on a single color.
He didn’t trust things that changed that easily. Then again, Stina didn’t seem interested in being predictable.
“My charm isn’t going to work on you, is it?”
“Your charm isn’t going to work on me,” he confirmed. “So you can stop trying to negotiate your way around every boundary I put in front of you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nice. Very big-brotherly.”
“No wonder you’ve had so many bad men in your life.” His words came out sharper than he intended.
Silence followed.
For the first time since he met her, Stina didn’t have a comeback. Her head slowly turned and when she looked at him, the attitude was gone from her face.
“How do you know that?”
He kept his eyes on the road, but he felt the shift in the vehicle like a temperature drop in the Oregon mountains.
“Jolie,” she whispered. Every emotion from embarrassment to betrayal to anger flashed across her face. “Jolie told some random guy all my personal business?” Her voice was quieter in a way he liked less than the arguing.
“Jolie worries about you.”
“So she handed you my trauma to use against me.”
“I’m keeping you safe, Stina. And I’m not some random guy.”
“You literally are. I met you tonight in an alley beside a dead body.”
He scraped up what remained of his patience and pushed out a low sigh. “The man in the dumpster was assigned to watch you.”
“Okay…”
“And now he’s dead.”
“Okay…”
He knew she wasn’t this stupid. If he had to guess from her wit, her IQ was higher than most.
“Which means whoever killed him knows where you live, Stina.”
He felt the realization dawn on her. Not fear or panic, but he could see her mind swatting at facts and arranging them in an order she wouldn’t like if she thought too hard about them.
Her gaze cut to the windshield. “Do you know where you’re going? Chicago can be easy to get lost in.”
“I know where I’m going.”
“You’re making a lot of turns.”
“Making sure nobody’s following us.”
