The Viper's Nest (Kit Davenport #4)(57)

Jonathan shrugged a bit helplessly. “You’re different.”

My jaw dropped at his watery reasoning. “If you’d been wrong, Vali would have died.”

“I wasn’t wrong.” He met my furious glare without remorse. “Don’t look at me like that, Kit. Like I’m some sort of psychopath. What I am doing is for your own good. For everyone’s good. You need to be a little less selfish, my girl, and think about the bigger picture in all of this.”

If it were even possible, my jaw dropped further.

Selfish? Is he fucking kidding me right now?

Sucking in a breath, I opened my mouth to launch a screaming tirade on him and the sheer audacity he had to sit there and call me selfish. After everything he’d done. But my words were swallowed when Wesley’s voice sounded in my earpiece.

“Kit, get the hell out of there. Now.” His warning was heard by River and Cole too, on their own earpieces, and I shot a panicked look at them both.

“Excuse us,” River said smoothly to Jonathan, standing and taking me by the elbow. “We just need to discuss something in private.”

My dad frowned and started to object, but River and Cole were already hustling me through the crowded restaurant and toward the kitchen.

“You have maybe two minutes,” Wesley warned. “There are five or six cars converging on your location.”

Fury burned hot in my blood, and I wanted nothing more than to stand and fight. Show these fuckers what I was really made of. But the restaurant was full of humans, and we were in the middle of a busy tourist location. We couldn’t take that risk unless there were no other options.

“Why would he do this?” I choked out, jogging in my high heels to keep up with the guys as they tugged me through the busy kitchen, ignoring the outraged yells of chefs, and out the back door into an alleyway where Cole had parked his motorcycle. “Why would Jonathan set me up? We agreed this was an amicable meeting.”

“He’s desperate,” Cole growled back. “But that won’t save him if I get my hands on him now.”

“Doesn’t matter, get on the bike and go,” River ordered. “Don’t let them catch you, love. No matter what it takes.”

Cole threw a leg over his bike and kicked the engine over as River gripped me by the waist and lifted me onto the seat behind Cole. I’d chosen this dress specifically for the split, allowing for a little more freedom of movement, but even so, it rode up high, leaving my legs exposed as they wrapped around Cole’s denim-clad thighs.

“No matter what,” River repeated, kissing me quickly even as Cole gunned the bike and we tore out of the alleyway. River would be getting his car from the valet now and hopefully leading at least a few of our enemies off our trail.

“Shit,” Wesley’s voice sounded in both our earpieces as Cole pulled us out into the traffic of Sunset Boulevard. “There were more that I didn’t catch on my cameras. You’ve got some on your tail already, but River should be able to confuse the ones arriving now.”

“Got it,” I replied, and Cole gave a small nod to show me he’d heard also. I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, and sure enough, two motorcycles carrying black-clad riders had pulled out into the street from the alley opposite the restaurant.

Hands gripping tight to Cole’s waist, I held on as he gunned the engine of his bike, weaving expertly between slow-moving traffic and far exceeding the speed limit. Who the hell cared for speed limits during a car chase, though? Or... bike chase as was the case here.

“I have two SUVs on me,” River advised over our earpieces.

“We have two bikes,” I replied in a tight voice. The sting of betrayal from Jonathan again was sitting in my throat like a stone.

“And an SUV,” Cole added, and I saw what he had just seen. A blacked-out SUV had just pulled out from a side street, and we’d narrowly missed clipping them as we passed. Had we not been already in a high-speed chase, it could have been a coincidence, but the blank licence plates were a dead giveaway. As was the fact that they quickly sped up to match our pace as we got clear of the traffic and onto a highway.

My long hair whipped around me as we flew through the night, and I cursed myself for not thinking to braid it back or something. As I lifted a hand to push it out of my eyes, I caught sight of one of our pursuers pulling closer to us.

It was one of the bikes, and in his hand, he held a sleek black pistol.

“Shit,” I swore, reaching around Cole’s waist a little more and withdrawing his own gun from the holster under his arm.

“Fucking seriously?” he yelled back to me, sounding as shocked as I was feeling.

“It sure as shit doesn’t look like a tranq gun from here,” I shouted back to him, shifting in my seat to try and get a better look at the gun which the black-clad man was trying to level at us while also controlling his speeding bike.

A shot fired, missing us completely, but it confirmed my suspicion. “Tranq darts are usually a whole lot quieter than that.”

“Fuck!” Cole roared, gunning his bike faster.

“They’re shooting at you, Kit?” Wesley’s panicked voice came down the earpiece. “That doesn’t make sense! They need you alive, don’t they?”

“Apparently not,” I snarled, leaning with Cole as we took a corner sharply, the pavement scant inches from the bare skin of my leg before we righted again. Another shot cracked through the night, but missed us again as we wove around some slow-moving cars.