Page 27 of Hard Knock Hero

The truck was heading straight toward us. I let go of Theo, giving him a shove. His arms pinwheeled as he raced toward the vehicle. The truck slowed enough for Theo to leap over the tailgate and into the bed. Then it sped up again. Heading straight toward me.

I took out my phone and hit record. Held up the device as I stood in the middle of the road.

Headlights bathed me in a yellow glow. In my head, I counted down.Three. Two. One… I was about to leap out of the way, but at the last moment, the truck veered around me.

I had a brief glimpse of two men in the driver’s seat. Both wore ski masks. The eyes of the driver, I knew. Mitch Rigsby. Chester’s brother. The asshole I’d had the displeasure of seeing this morning outside the coffee shop. The man riding shotgun, I didn’t recognize. But he had an actual shotgun nestled against his chest.

Mitch’s eyes were furious. His lips mouthed the words,You’re dead.

And then, tail lights glowed as the truck roared past me down Main Street. The vein in my head throbbed, like I was still counting down.

Jessi. I had to make sure she was okay.

I spun to face the diner and looked up at the second level. I found her framed in one of the apartment windows. Her eyes were wide and frightened. She waved for me to come back inside, and I gave her a signal meaningstay there.

Silence had returned. I breathed, coaxing my pulse to slow. Using my phone, I recorded the broken window of Jessi’s Diner, narrating aloud exactly what had happened a few minutes before. For evidence. Next, I went inside and found the brick Theo had thrown. It had skittered to one wall, but I grabbed the projectile and removed the rubber band and the paper that the Rigsby brothers had attached to it.

It said,You and your brother better leave town while you still can, bitch.

I thumbed the button on my phone to end the recording. “Now you’ve done it, assholes,” I murmured. “It’s on.”

CHAPTEREIGHT

Jessi

The last fewminutes played in a loop in my mind. “Get upstairs,” Aiden had said. “Lock the door.”

But I hadn’t wanted to run. I had wanted tofight.

Those jerks had just broken the window of my diner. The place I had worked my butt off to establish in the last two years, and they were trying to destroy it. I shook with fury as I watched Aiden run outside, chasing after the fleeing figure. And I was half a step from running out there after him.

But I forced myself to think better of it.Be smart, Jessi.Aiden needed backup, and I was hardly the one to do it. What if the Rigsby brothers had been trying to lure us outside? Aiden was unarmed.

I had to call Owen.

I hurried to the kitchen as I pulled out my phone. I grabbed a chef’s knife from the block and raced up the stairs to my apartment. By the time I had the door closed and locked behind me, Owen picked up my call. “Jessi?”

I nearly tripped over Aiden’s duffel bag. He must’ve left it here earlier when he showered. Maybe his sudden presence in my life had complicated matters, but I was still glad that Aiden was here. He’d stepped up for me in a way nobody else had. Probablyever. If he got hurt while defending me, how could I forgive myself?

The words rushed out of me. “Somebody just threw a brick through the window of the diner. Aid—” I closed my mouth on the rest of Aiden’s name. “Um, Trace is running after them. You have to help.Please.”

Owen cursed. I heard a sound like clothing rustling. “I’ll radio a couple deputies to get there. I’ll be right behind them. Stay out of sight, Jessi. Don’t do anything stupid.”

I ended the call, annoyed that the second man in just as many minutes had told me to stay out of the way.

I went to the window and yanked up the blinds. My throat seized as I saw what was going on outside. Aiden was snarling at Theo Rigsby, who lay sprawled on the icy road. And Mitch Rigsby’s truck had just swung around. Aiden let go of Theo, who scampered toward the truck and leaped into the bed.

But now the truck was barreling straight toward Aiden, who just stood there in the road. I banged on the glass, as if he’d be able to hear me. I’d never met a man so absurdly reckless. If he got himself killed out there—

I almost passed out from relief when the truck swerved around him, and Aiden looked up at me in the window. Then his hand flattened, as if saying,Stay there. But I’d had enough of that particular instruction.

Still holding the chef’s knife, I threw open my apartment door and hurried down the steps. I found Aiden in the dining room, kneeling to yank the rubber band off the brick that had trashed my window. He unfolded the piece of paper attached, muttering something to himself.

“What does it say?” I asked.

Aiden did one of his eyebrow things. He glanced at the knife still dangling from my hand. “Careful with that. Could hurt someone.”

I wasn’t in the mood for his deadpan sarcasm. I thunked the knife down on a table. “Aiden,the note.”

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