Page 53 of Ride Long
“Hey, Chaser?” Sloane’s voice echoed down the narrowalley.
I glanced over my shoulder. Even the darkness made her lookbeautiful.
“Thankyou.”
I nodded and slid into thecar.
“What’s with you two?” Sam asked as I turned on the engine and coasted down thealley.
I grunted, not wanting to talk about it. Sloane had started off as cargo, just like Sam was now. Difference was, Sam would stay that way. Unless Fortitude realized where I was, who I was with, and where we were going. The Hollow Men didn’t rate a mention…yet.
“You fell in love with her, didn’tyou?”
“You don’t know anything about my life,” I replied, keeping my eyes on theroad.
“I supposenot.”
Thank fuck she shut her mouth because I was not in the mood for a heart-to-heart. I was driving twenty hours across the country for her—for Sloane—risking my position in Fortitude to get Sam out. I didn’t need another big-mouthed woman telling me what I needed to do on a long drive throughhell.
“She’s not safe there,” Sam said, breaking the silence I craved. “She’ll never besafe.”
“She knows that,” I shot back. “We knowthat.”
“If you care about her, you need to get her out ofthere.”
“Sloane… She has unfinished business with her father.” It was all I could say on the matter. Try explaining my past, Sloane’s, and our current fucked-up plans for taking Fortitude to a woman who’d become a widow less than twelve hoursago.
“You can tell me, Chaser,” she said. “I’m not going back there. I can’t.” She snorted and sank back in the seat. “Harley was the only person who kept me safe, and even then, he’d become a monster. I loved him once, but I was too afraid to leave. There was still a part of me that hoped the man I fell for was still in there. That Fortitude hadn’t taken him away from me entirely, you know? I was afraid to letgo.”
I tensed, her words hitting home.He’d become a monster.I wasn’t the same…wasI?
“Everyone else, they might’ve liked me in their own way, but they didn’t stop him hurting me,” she went on. “Not once. Sloane was the only person who stepped in, you know. I should’ve trustedher.”
“You had no reason to trust anyone,” I said. “Not with a track record likethat.”
“I only trust you and this Yvette woman because Sloanevouched.”
I gritted my teeth. Shit, I hated deep and meaningful conversations. I wouldn’t even entertain them with Sloane, let aloneSam.
“No one ever stuck up for me like that,” Sam went on, babbling. “Stood up to Harley. I can’t believe he’s gone… Just…Dead.”
“Sloane stood up for you for a reason,” I said. “She risked her life foryou.”
“You risked yours for her, right? You gotstabbed?”
“It’s my job,” Isnapped.
“No one voluntarily gets knifed,” shedeclared.
“I do.” I was so over thisconversation.
Sam’s mouth fell open in shock. “She’s got yourballs!”
“Huh?”
“Kelly will bedevastated.”
“Who the fuck is Kelly?” I scowled and rolled myeyes.
