Max was turning again. Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator.
“Throw your phone out the window, bitch.” The rasp made her breath choke out.
Her gaze shot to the mirror. Sam caught sight of the dark truck with tinted windows that was closing in on her.
Following us.
She glanced down at her phone. That wasn’t the number she’d seen for Donnelley. The ass**le had switched phones.
“Do you want him to die? It will be so easy to kill him.”
Sam lowered her window. Wind whipped into the car and sent her hair flying.
The phone dropped onto the pavement. Shattered.
Luke stared at Donnelley’s face. Pale and still. A red smile had been cut into his neck, a grin that stretched sickeningly from ear to ear. And the bastard’s chest had been carved open.
Luke inhaled the stench of death and spun around, the phone already at his ear. “Hyde! We’ve got a problem. Yeah, yeah, we found the phone.” Tossed next to the corpse. “And Donnelley.”
“Get him in here. I want him to tell us—”
“Sir, he isn’t going to be talking.” Luke threw one more fast glance at the body. “Not to anyone.”
So Donnelley damn well wasn’t the one who’d made the call to Ridgeway. “Can you get Sam? She’s got to know what’s happening.”
The pause on the line stretched too long, and Luke knew Hyde was trying to connect with Sam on one of the SSD’s other lines. Then Hyde said, “She’s not answering.”
What? No, shit, she—
“But don’t worry,” Hyde continued, “she’s showing us exactly where we need to go.”
Sam’s hands had a death grip on the steering wheel. The black truck had disappeared, veering away minutes before. Just a few miles down the road, she could see the trunk of Max’s car in front of her. Had he seen her yet? She’d stayed back at first and tried to keep other cars between them.
The VW jolted when she hit a pothole. Woods surrounded her, and the old road had sure seen better days. Traffic had thinned quickly. No one else was traveling on this deserted stretch as she drove farther from the bustle of the city and into the thick woods of the countryside. No one else was there—Max had to see her. No place to hide now.
Virginia. They’d crossed the state line at some point. As the road snaked deeper into the woods, Sam wondered where this chase was leading them.
She lost sight of Max for a moment when she rounded a curve, and fear spiked her blood. The VW pushed forward, taking the sharp curve too fast, and Sam glimpsed the glittering water of a river. The river waited on the left, narrowing up ahead as it flowed hard and fast under a metal bridge. The sunlight hit the surface of the water, reflected back, and made the waves look gray, not black as—
Something slammed into the side of her car. Sam screamed, and her head whipped to the right. The black truck. It had shot out from a dirt road—a road almost completely hidden by the thick pine trees—and plowed right into her.
Glass shattered around her, and metal screeched. She slammed on the brakes as she fought to control her car. The VW was shaking, sagging, and the passenger side air bag had exploded out, blasting white and blocking her view of the truck as it reversed—
And then lunged forward, hitting her again. Metal screeched once more. She screamed, and the truck’s motor revved as the horsepower kicked in. The truck started to push her car toward the edge of the road.
“No!” She fumbled, trying to unsnap her seatbelt. Glass rained down on her, cutting her hands, her face, and the blood made her fingers slick. The VW shuddered as the truck forced it closer to the water.
The seat belt popped free. Sam reached out to shove open her door.
Too late.
The VW rolled over the edge of the road and sent her tumbling inside the car. Her head slammed into the ceiling, and her body twisted. Her back rammed into the windshield, and her knee hit the gearshift. Sam felt something pop.
Roll. Roll. Roll.
Another loud screech filled her ears as the front of the car scraped past the edge of the bridge. Then the car crashed into the river. Water came flooding in through the shattered windows. The car filled up fast.
Cold. So cold. Holding her down. Killing her.
Sam opened her mouth and screamed as the water rose.
Max’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror. He thought he’d caught a flash of red moments before. Red… Samantha’s car was red….
Would she have followed him? Hell yes.
As he cleared the bridge, his gaze drifted to the river. After a moment, he glanced back in the mirror—and saw a nightmare.
A black truck plowed into the side of a red VW—Samantha’s car. The truck rammed the car again, and the little vehicle rolled down into the river.
The water.
“Samantha!” His foot shoved the brake pedal all the way to the floorboard. He wrenched the wheel, spinning the car around in the road and sending up a cloud of dust. Then he flew hell fast back to her.
The drumming of his heartbeat filled his ears, and he whispered her name, again and again. Be alive. Oh, Christ. She had to be okay.
He jumped from his car even before it had come to a full stop. The black truck sat near the edge of the road, the engine idling, the door hanging open, swaying. But the driver’s seat was empty.
Bastard’s out there. Waiting.
Watching. He’d known Samantha was tailing Max. He’d taken her out and deliberately brought Max into the open in order to attack.
Screw him.
Max ran for the river. He screamed Samantha’s name because he didn’t see her. The VW was sinking quickly in the deep water near the bridge. A fist squeezed his heart as he prepared to dive into that icy water—
A bullet tore through his shoulder. The blast of the gun echoed in his ears even as he fell. Max tumbled down the embankment and rolled toward the water. The fiery pain stole his breath, and when the damn world stopped spinning, he was in the water.
Samantha. He rose up, struggling to his feet.
Another gunshot—this one hit him in the back of the leg. He couldn’t see the VW’s tires anymore. The car had flipped, and it had sunk so fast, going completely under.
Max slid down again. “Bastard!”
Laughter echoed across the lake. “No… that would be you, brother.”
His head whipped around, and in that split second, Max found himself staring back at Quinlan. His stepbrother stood on the road, close to the black truck, with a gun in his hand. A gun pointed right at Max.
“Move toward her again,” Quinlan said, “and I’ll put a hole in your chest.” And he smiled. Smiled.