Captor Mine (Base Branch Series Book 13) Page 10

  Hunter flipped on the safety, tossed the gun onto the seat, planted one foot on the ground and dove for the car. He landed hard, chest first onto slick leather. A shot of adrenaline gave him the strength to pull his lower half inside the car and turn over.

  “I thought I told you to go,” he growled.

  “The door.” Kat’s voice pitched high.

  He gathered what will he had left and hauled the heavy door closed. A bullet fractured the glass pane less than a foot behind his head.

  “Motherf—”

  The car lurched backward. Hunter gripped the console to keep from being dumped from the seat.

  Kat held the wheel in one petite hand and mastered the gear shift in the other. The speedometer climbed numbers like a crooked Wall Street accountant. Too much. Too fast. He didn’t want to be shot. He also didn’t want to be launched through the windshield and splattered across the lawn.

  “Kat?”

  “You told me to go. I’m going.”

  They shot past the back door of the mansion and onto the mouth of a driveway that was the equivalent of a two-lane highway.

  “We’re far enough away. You can slow—” Two men poured from the house with automatic rifles strapped to their chests. “Keep going. Keep going.” Hunter lowered his window and fired two wild shots. One of the men ducked back inside. The other raised his gun and sprayed too damn close to the Porsche Spyder’s front end.

  The pistol wouldn’t corral the man inside. He looked around the interior but came up empty. “Where’s the bag, the rifle?”

  “In the parking lot.”

  “What?” He fired off another round at the man with no effect.

  “Would you have rather me gotten it or you?”

  “Touché.”

  A blast shook the ground beneath them. It tossed the man and his AR into the air. Windows exploded from the fine building. Smoke rolled from the door.

  “You did that?” Kat’s brows hiked damn near her hairline.

  Hunter shrugged. “You can slow and tur—”

  Kat depressed the brakes and manhandled the steering wheel. Hunter’s insides slammed into the left side of his skeleton. The front end of the car swung one-hundred eighty degrees. Kat shifted like a pro and shot them forward, away from the house, completing one of the prettiest J turns he’d ever witnessed.

  “How the hell did you learn to drive like that, Doc?”

  “My uncle has an affinity for fast cars. He won this one in a bet against an American businessman.”

  Hunter suspected that had been her uncle’s way of saying he’d killed the American and stolen the car, but he’d keep his mouth shut.

  “He had an affinity for them,” she corrected. “When I was little, probably too little, he taught me a thing or two about driving.”

  Shit. The uncle who had nearly killed Tyler. The uncle who Cara Lee killed to save his friend. Did she know he was dead? She’d used the past tense when talking about him. Hunter’s insides twisted. “Kat, I—”

  Her head shook. A hundred tiny, blonde flyaways created a living halo around her face. “I don’t want to discuss it. Can’t. Not now.”

  He nodded and let the subject fall away along with the sight of the mansion. No one followed them. Thank goodness. He only had eight bullets to defend them. His discomfort mounted. He was naked, beaten, and one leg down with a woman who’d saved the life her father had tried to torture out of him. Plus, they were in the middle of no-fucking-where with no fucking backup.

  “Where are you going, Doc?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Swedish country.”

  “You know you can’t go home?”

  “I don’t have a home here.”

  Hunter wanted to know more. Had her father raised her? How had she really not known he was a monster? He wrestled his curiosity. “There’s a safe house in Oslo. It’s off the grid. There’s food, clothing. No one would know we were there.” It housed a fair stash of weapons too, but he kept that to himself.

  Her gaze landed on his lap and the gun he’d used to cover himself as much as possible. Color, vibrant and red, stained her cheeks. She pulled her chin up and trained it to the front of the car. They whipped past trees at a swift clip. He’d much rather have her eyes on the road right now.

  “We’re about an hour from the Norwegian border.” She pointed to the right. “West of here. It’s three more hours to Oslo.”

  “Before we head west, we need to get a new car.”

  “Why?” She snapped a narrowed gaze to him. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  He offered both bloody palms. “Actually, this car is a wet dream of mine, but they’re probably tracking it.”

  “Tracking us?” The car slowed.

  “Don’t stop.”

  “If they know where we are…” Kat shifted into a higher gear and gunned the engine with gusto.

  “They can’t transport here. Right now, they’re dealing with a fire raging up their asses. It should give us enough time to make the switch.”

  She dragged a hand down the side of her face. “Switch to what?” Her other hand left the steering wheel and shot toward the heavens. “I don’t have money. I don’t have friends…here.”

  “You didn’t grow up here?” He couldn’t help himself.

  Her gaze slid to his. Hunter held it until she looked away. Kat pursed her lips. “No, I didn’t. I grew up in Italy.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what that has to do with us being well and fucked.”

  It was his turn to clear his throat. She’d been so proper, hardly using a curse word in even the most curse-worthy situations. A smile spread his lips. “We’re not well fucked. Not yet, anyway. I’m hardly in the condition.” And boy would he ever like to show her what it was like to be well fucked.

  Kat tugged the collar of her shirt, shifted on the leather, and then pulled the seat belt across her lap. “Buckle up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hunter pulled the belt across his chest and groaned. His ribs throbbed. His back burned. When he secured the metal clip into the latch, his cock had lengthened with a semi-erect hard-on, apparently not giving a shit about his current physical state. He looked around the car for a jacket or something to cover himself. Nothing. Not even napkins in the glove box. He double cupped his manhood for Kat for the second time.

  Her eyes remained locked on the road. “I can stop at the next town, withdraw some money, and get you some clothes, medicine, and supplies for your cuts.”

  “No.” Hunter swiveled his good eye on her. “No cards, no bank accounts, no calling friends or phoning work.” White knuckles showed just how thoroughly she choked the steering wheel. “They’ll pinpoint your location in seconds and, depending on who they’ve bought, could have ten cameras on you in minutes.”

  “What about the car? They’re tracking it.” She slapped the wheel.

  “Let them track the car. Stop there.” He pointed at a small vegetable stand at the side of the road.

  “Are you hungry?” Kat’s pretty blue eyes widened. “Feeling dizzy, lightheaded?” She immediately reached for him, running a hand across his forehead from one side to the other.

  “I’m fine, Kat.” He patted her hand and pointed again. “Pull over.”

  She pulled onto the dirt and grass combo twenty yards off the highway. A truck loaded with potatoes and leafy greens sat behind a row of overflowing bins with a small hanging scale at one end. One small truck and one tiny car flanked the food truck. Their patrons stood at the bins. The truck owner loaded several small flats of vegetation into the bed of her truck. A man in well-worn shoes and frayed shorts held a bunch of greens and haggled over their price. Hunter couldn’t hear the conversation, but his body language told the story of hard times.

  “Park to the right side of that car.”

  “That’s not a car. That’s a rusted-out go-cart.”

  “Car is in the word cart.” He shrugged, and every injury roared wi
th fresh pain. It would get a lot worse…really soon.

  Kat turned up her nose like a true automotive connoisseur but pulled next to the late 1970s model Volvo as he’d asked. “Now what?”

  “We move fast.” Hunter glared at his nub. His fast had a new definition, and he hated it. He stowed the pain and disappointment in the darkest recesses of his mind and offered her a wicked smile.

  “Where?”

  “Into the rust bucket.” He grabbed the keys from the console, opened his door and stood, leaving Kat gaping after him and his bare ass. Every muscle in his back, arms, and legs protested along with his ribs and half of his face. Blood pulsed with his every hop to the hood, and then around to the driver’s door on the usual passenger side for him. The old car’s ragged owner never won anything in a gamble or in life, but he hadn’t let it hold him down. Where Hunter expected littered floorboards and ripped seats, he found a tidy interior and two unlocked doors.

  “Hunter,” Kat hissed from the slightly opened Porsche door.

  “Hey!” Hunter called out to the thin man still in a price war over greens. He long tossed the fancy car’s keys across thirty yards. The man turned in time to catch them from reflex more than skill.

  The fella’s lined face scrunched together. His gaze lowered to the fancy fob in his hand and then slowly lifted it to Hunter. The lines of confusion deepened. One corner of his upper lip quirked. When his gaze drifted lower to Hunter’s junk, the man’s shoulders jerked. His lids peeled wide, and he found his old shoes extremely interesting.

  “Take the car.” Hunter motioned to the Porsche. “Drive it to Stockholm as fast as you can. Look up a guy named Robart Manceen. Sell the car. He’ll give you a fair price. Go now or don’t touch the car. It’s your call to make, but make it in the next minute.”

  Hunter opened the old car’s door. It groaned in contempt. He slid—mostly fell—into the driver’s seat. The shock of impact was stolen by the realization that no keys were in the ignition, in a cup holder, or any other place he quickly looked. Of course. Just his one-legged luck. He pushed the metal ignition and used the two metal tabs on either side of where a key should be to twist. The tired engine turned over like molasses in winter three times before choking to life.

  “Ha!” He yanked the gear into reverse, pulled out, and positioned the car as close to Kat as he could without scraping the paint off the high dollar automobile she scrambled from. None of the people in the small lot moved. They stared, struck dumb by a naked, one-legged man, practically stealing a car in broad daylight.

  A laugh tickled Hunter’s throat.

  “You’re stealing that poor man’s car?” Kat threw herself into the passenger seat—where the driver’s seat should’ve been—and slammed the door.

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a car?”

  Her neck that’d been craned toward the witnesses snapped to him. “Don’t be cute.”

  “You think I’m cute?” He depressed the gas, tossed dust into the air, and got them the hell out of sight.

  “Hunter.”

  “It’s not stealing. It’s trading.”

  Kat scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She pouted like a little girl. He didn’t have experience with them, but it’s how he imagined they’d act anyway. “You did it naked too. You’re a naked thief.”

  Amusement, delirium, desperation, and his sick sense of humor coalesced into the heartiest laugh he’d experienced since Oliver had been taken. It rolled through his chest, sending shockwaves of agony through his ribs, and still, he laughed on. Soon, the corners of Kat’s sweet mouth turned from south to north. A melodic rumble escaped her lips. Her head shook. They were a ridiculous pair. Blood covered and on the run, but laughing and carrying on something fierce.

  Too quickly, the laughter died and was replaced with hollow silence.

  They were far from safe and even farther from being on a level playing field. The first tell? Both her arms wrapped around her torso in a self-consoling hug. Second? She hadn’t looked him in the eyes, really excavated him with those ocean blue eyes of hers, since she found out he’d been part and parcel to the killing of her uncle.

  The clunker shuddered along toward Oslo, filling the wordless cab with noise for one hundred miles or more.

  “We’re going to need petrol soon.” Hunter gestured to the instrument panel that boasted two working gauges. Who needed a speedometer anyway?

  She nodded but said nothing.

  “Want to rock, paper, scissors for who pumps?”

  That earned him a quarter smile. “I’ll do it. I should be able to wipe the blood from my arms with the water from the window wiper pail without drawing too much attention.”

  He pulled into a small country gas station and parked at the pump closest to the road. “I found this during my key search.” From the console, he pulled a small stash of money and held it out to her. But when she grabbed it, he didn’t let go.

  Her gaze finally met his.

  “I’ll understand if you go inside and call the police on me. They won’t hurt me or keep me for long, but please don’t. No one can protect you as I can.” Could. He couldn’t even save her from a big dumb guard. Still, he pressed on as soldiers do. “I know how they operate. I know how to keep you off the grid until you’re in the clear. But if you do turn me in, promise me one thing.”

  She didn’t speak, but neither did she look away.

  “Don’t go back to your old life. He’ll find you. And for God’s sake, don’t go back to him.”

  Kat offered one curt nod. It forced a sweat soaked clump of hair onto her forehead. Hunter pushed it back from her face. “Thank you for saving me. You didn’t have to, but I’m damn glad you did.” He thought so anyway. The next legless weeks would tell.

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “For what?” Almost getting her killed?

  “Not making me shoot anyone.”

  “I’ll never make you do something you don’t want to do, Kat. Never.”

  18

  The quiet drive only allowed her to see the swollen side of Hunter’s face. From the hunch in his shoulders and the labor of his breathing, she could tell he was hurt. It kept her on high alert. She expected him to pass out from the pain he was surely in at least once a mile.

  “Whenever we get where we’re going, I need to examine your ribs.”

  “What’s to examine, Doc? They’re broken.”

  Kat chewed her lower lip to keep from screaming. They’d beaten him so badly they’d broken his bones. These were not a frail person’s bones. These were thick, dense networks of collagen and calcium wrapped in layers of muscle. She knew exactly how much force it took to break a healthy bone. A thousand times she’d used power tools to do so in surgery. Her stomach flipped like a first day med student getting her first sniff of the toxic mix of formaldehyde.

  She pressed a hand to her belly and turned her gaze to the trees zipping past. “You have to breathe deeply even though it hurts.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t my first broken rib.” He continued to inhale shallow, pitiful breaths.

  “Again, that doesn’t make me feel better.” Kat snapped her arms together and turned on him. “You may have broken a rib or two, but probably not as many as you’re boasting now. Breathe deeply. That’s an order. I won’t have you getting pneumonia. I’ve worked too hard to see you die now.”

  “Jesus. You’re worse than my commander is.” He pulled in a full breath and hissed it out between clenched teeth. “Way worse.”

  “Again.”

  “Fuck.” Hunter gritted through the exercise and didn’t utter another word. Well, he muttered words, but none were conversational.

  Finally, three grueling hours later, gravel crunched under the creaky wheels, and they left the small highway for a winding driveway huddled with overhanging trees. The go-cart rounded the last bend, and the greenery gave way to clear sky and a deep blue lake cloaked by tall aspens. Two structures obscured the natural wonder of the place.
Hunter drove past a small house and to the face of a detached building that matched the other in size. When he placed the car in park, Kat’s lungs drew the first full breath in hours, days really. Just because she’d made him breathe deeply didn’t mean she had to.

  Hunter opened the groaning door and shifted to stand. A small cry escaped his lips before he clamped them together. Kat’s tiny respite from constant worry fled. His wounds had dried to the worn-slick leather.

  “I can—”

  Before he heard her offer of help, Hunter peeled himself from the seat and stood—wobbled. He braced between the door and the vehicle’s roof. She shouldn’t look at a wounded and distressed man’s cock, but his torturers left it untouched and in perfect condition. Her mouth watered, and she practically threw herself out her door to keep from pressing the thoughts dogging her one centimeter farther.

  “What can I do?”

  “I’ve got it.” Hunter hopped to the wall, slid up a hidden panel, and pounded out a long series of numbers.

  Two garage doors opened faster than your average garage door, not that she’d ever owned one. She’d seen the sluggish things, though, and this wasn’t one of them. It zipped up, revealing a sleek gunmetal Audi and a truck big enough, accessorized enough, to crush her soul.

  “On second thought...” Hunter nodded at the far wall. “Grab the keys to the Audi and pull it out. Park in front of the house.”

  She rushed forward before he changed his mind about letting her help. The man was stubborn and not used to help, taking on the world with his own two hands. More and more, she wanted to know what made him the indomitable man he was, but she wouldn’t ask. The more she knew, the more captivated she became. Captivation meant vulnerability, and she couldn’t quite trust him yet or maybe herself ever.

  It took her no time to perform the task. She locked the car and rushed to the garage where he exited one hop at a time, leaving the rickety car behind the solid garage doors. Instead of asking, Kat moved to his side, slipped an arm around his waist, and hooked his left over her shoulder. After another long hobbling hike and an equally long code, they made it inside.