Page 103 of Smith

Jesus. Shit. Fuck.

Jonas hit the accelerator and drifted around the corner onto route 50.

I left my woman sleeping in bed with a head full of the future I never would’ve believed could be mine, with a woman who I never would’ve believed I could earn but I had, and I did this while not paying attention to her street.

I got into the Escalade knowing Aria was mine, but didn’t bother to scan the cars are we drove away.

This shit was on me.

And this time, there was no denying I was to blame.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Move! Hurry the fuck up!”

I didn’t get the chance to move under my own volition—slowlyorin a hurry before my hair was yanked and my body was jerked out of the car. It was either go in the direction of my hair or be scalped. Neither option was good, though I’d take being scalped over getting out of the car on a long dark stretch of dirt road with a maniac with a gun.

My knees hit the rocky ground. Pebbles and debris dug into my bare flesh, causing me to cry out in pain.

“Shut the hell up!”

With another vicious yank, I fell forward, my palms skidded on the dirt, and I lost my balance. Before I could scramble to my feet he started dragging me.

“Please,” I wheezed. “I’ll walk.”

I was not above begging. I could feel the skin from my hip to my ankle being scuffed and chaffed, adding to the throbbing pain he’d already caused.

The man stopped, looked down at me. The early morning light caught the silver barrel of his gun, and a new fear ricocheted inside me.

He was going to kill me on the side of the road and leave me here.

This was how Smith would find me. In his torn t-shirt, bloodied face, road-rashed thigh, dead in a ditch. Then Zane would have to notify my father. I wasn’t sure which notion I hated more—Smith finding me or my father losing his daughter after hearing me fight for my life from five-thousand miles away.

Why had I called him?

Why had I decided to get up, make coffee, and have a natter with my dad?

Why hadn’t I stayed in bed?

“Are you listening?”

No, asshole, my ear is still ringing from your punching me in it.

“Just… just give me a second. I’ll walk.”

“Hurry up.”

Again with the hair-pulling—this time it was in an upward motion. I’d barely managed to get to my feet when he started walking at a fast clip that had me fighting to keep up. Not only because my feet were bare but my head was swimming.

He pulled me farther off the road. The tall grass and saplings scraped my legs, rocks dug into my feet, every inch of me screamed in pain, and I was fairly certain he’d broken a few ribs with a power punch to my back. That was the blow that ended the fight, that punch that had me doubled over, unable to breathe. After that he had me.

“Listen, Billy?—”

He stopped so abruptly, I pitched forward, then I was stumbling back from the force of his fist connecting with my cheek.

Pain exploded.

“I’m—”

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