Raging Heart On (Lucas Brothers #2)(133)

“Aren’t you going to read your fortune?”

Max’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I try and drum up a smile for him. We’re sitting on the couch watching football, or rather Max is watching and eating Chinese takeout that Marcum had one of his crew bring by. I’m not a big fan, but Max likes it, so I’m dealing with it by having fried noodles. The stench from whatever cabbage crap Max is eating though is doing a number on my stomach. Stress and worry do nothing to increase my appetite. I hold out my hand for the cookie, and he drops it in my hand.

“Who’s first?”

“Considering the last fortune I read was the newspaper the day I met you, and it told me to go back to bed and not leave the house. I’ll let you go first.”

He shakes his head at me, but cracks open his cookie.

“Practice makes perfect,” he reads and looks over to me with a big smirk on his face. “You know what that means, Kitten.”

Just the look on his face is enough to make every feminine part inside of me clench and moan in response. “Down, Casanova, it’s only been an hour since our last workout.”

“I’m sorry, Kitten, I didn’t realize you required recovery time.”

“At least one of us does,” I respond shaking my head at his smile. He puts a kiss on the top of my head and gives me a half hug. “Okay, Kitten. Enough stalling, crack open that damn cookie!”

“Jesus, you’re like a kid! Are you like this at Christmas?”

“Worse, now quit stalling and show me what your damn fortune says!”

My hand trembles while I break the cookie apart. I don’t know why I would rather not read it. I just know I don’t want to. I pull out the small paper while holding my breath. Finally, I release with a quiet huff of air and read.

“It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

It’s just a cookie, but the words lay there between us. I look up at him, and he’s smiling.

“Look there, Kitten. Confucius is telling me to f*ck your ass tonight.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what it was talking about,” I tell him, but I laugh as I’m sure he intended.

“Tomato, to-mat-toe,” he shrugs.

His hand slides against my neck and he pulls my lips to him.

“Max,” I half moan, half protest.

“Tess,” his brusque voice whispers back, then his sweet lips touch mine, barely touching mine at first though his tongue comes out to tease against mine.

Rinnnnnng.

The sharp shrill of the phone rings. We don’t answer it, for obvious reasons. There’s a procedure to be followed. I know Max and I both are holding our breath. The phone isn’t supposed to ring. The club uses Max’s burn phone. The only time the house phone is supposed to be used is if there is trouble. The phone rings a few times and then stops. Simultaneously, a cold sweat breaks out over my skin. I’m almost starting to breathe normally, and I know Max’s body starts to relax when the phone rings again. Shit.

I look at him, and he gives me silent encouragement. My hand shakes as I reach over to the phone. I clear my suddenly dry throat because it feels like my tongue is heavy, and I may choke on it.

“Hello?” I ask, my hand holding the phone as if it were my greatest enemy, and I think it might be right now.

“Hey Cherry, Marcum wanted to make sure you weren’t having trouble, asked me to call.”

My heart flips over in my chest as one of Marcum’s men speaks over the phone. I can’t even remember his name, but I know what this call is. It’s a warning; the cops are on to Max. “I’m on my way. One of the twins fell asleep and put me behind. Tell him to stop worrying.” I feel Max get up and his harsh curse echo in the room.

“Got it. Better get a move on, Cherry. Marcum has been sitting on his head for the last ten minutes.”

“Will do.” I hang up and jump up going to get the overnight bag that I’ve packed for Max and I. I stuff the forgotten fortune into the pocket of my jeans.

“Time?” Max barks, putting on his hiking boots and then looking out the windows carefully.

“He mentioned ten minutes?” I answer, panic swamping my voice.

“Fuck!”

That pretty much sums it up I think, running back into the room, the backpack over my shoulder and my tennis shoes now firmly on my feet. That uneasy feeling in my stomach intensifies. “How did this happen? I thought Marcum had the police nailed down?”

“If they’re using safeguards, that means there’s a mole in the club.”

“Great,” I whisper and those damn tears I seem to keep crying lately, are breaking to the surface. I squeeze my eyes tight trying to hold them back as Max takes my hand.

“I can’t leave you here, Tess. There’s a chance they will shoot first. We’ll follow the trail we marked and make our way to the meeting point with Marcum. You’ll stay with him.”

“You’re leaving me behind?” I ask, and I’m sure the worse feeling in the world is having someone you love, admit that to you. My panic, hurt, and fear all roll together, and I fight to keep from drowning because that’s how it feels.

“Let’s go,” he says not giving me an answer. His hand wraps around my wrist, and we go to the back door.

He opens it carefully. My body is strung tight. I had this thought that the minute we opened the door a hundred guns would be pointed at us. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. However, in the distance I can hear sirens. They’ll be right on our heels. Max takes off running, pulling me with him. My legs feel like jelly, and even the salty ocean air is doing nothing to help me breathe. Why was staying at the beach such a good idea? It’s so wide open? We should have already been in the hills. You can hide in the hills or something right? My heart is beating so hard; it’s robbing me of air. I swallow down the bile that keeps trying to rise in my throat, as I can hear yelling and chaos behind us. I don’t turn around to look. I’d rather not know. We’re headed down the beach to a small shed. There’s a side by side ATV that the club keeps. I know the plan because Max and I have gone over it so many times. We get it in it and take off, at the end of the peach there’s a pier. Under the pier, there’s a walkway that cuts back into the main drag and will lead us into a marina full of sailboats. From there a quick turn and we can be back to the swamplands and area that will make it harder for us to be tracked. It all sounded well thought out when Marcum and Max discussed it before. Now it sounds and feels like sheer lunacy.