She tore down the street and turned at the first corner. She changed gears and spun the car around. More men were coming from behind big hedges that blocked the high brick wall behind it.

“In front of you,” the man said.

She looked and saw a car driving straight for her. She recognized the fur hats of at least two guards sitting in the front seat.

“Shit.” She hit the button to automatically lower the window and shifted gears once more, putting the Maserati back into reverse. “Hold on.”

The car headed backward again. Guards ran into the street, under some delusion that she’d stop. She couldn’t. At this point she was in too deep. And she’d prefer not to do time for stealing this car.

She pulled the .45 out of her holster and aimed out the window, shooting at the car still coming at her. She hit the other car’s windshield, blood spurted, and the car swerved. Sophie brought her arm back, dropped the gun, and changed hands on the wheel. She shifted and spun the car, moving forward, other cars falling in behind her.

Tearing down the busy streets, she cut across boulevards, and used other cars as shields.

“No cops,” she muttered, surprised she hadn’t heard even one siren yet.

“There won’t be cops until you clear ... whatever town we’re in,” he told her.

Sophie smiled a little. “Good.”

She kept moving, pushing, using every trick she’d ever learned or taught herself. Cars came at her from different directions, from alleys, behind other cars. She didn’t let any of them stop her because she knew none of them could really keep up with her.

But there was one who kept trying. She knew she had to shake that one off if she hoped to get out of this. She went down an alley and around a truck parked outside a deli. She tore outside the other end of the alley and spun the wheel hard. She went a few feet up and hit another alley. She went halfway down that one and stopped behind a shoe store.

Sophie still had the window rolled down, so she listened and watched in the side mirror. Cars sped by, heading down the street. She only had a few minutes before they’d come back and do a street-by-street search.

“I’m bleeding all over your nice seats.”

Yeah. He was, but how was that her problem?

With one more look at him, she opened the door and stepped out, abandoning the car. Such a shame, too. That car would have brought in some nice money.

Mikey wasn’t surprised she bailed. Even though she had a set of keys, he could tell that she wasn’t the owner of this car. Trying to get it out of wherever they were with a bleeding man sitting beside her was going to be impossible.

Honestly, Mikey was just glad he didn’t have to worry about risking her life, too.

He did, however, briefly toy with the idea of getting in the driver’s seatand driving out of here. She’d left the key in the ignition. But all he could do was stare at those keys, watching them sway.

He heard a car pull in and Mikey thought, Here we go.

His door opened and the girl leaned in. “Come on. I haven’t got all day.” She took his arm and pulled it over her shoulder, helping Mikey from the car.

She was strong, but definitely full-human. Together, they made it to a really nice late-model BMW with dark-tinted windows. She put him in the back, laying him out across the seat, and went to the driver’s side. Within seconds, she had them back on the road.

“You know this town,” Mikey said, lifting his hand to look at all the blood on it.

“I know every town.”

Right. In case she had to make a run for it.

“I need you to take me into the City.” Realizing he might not actually be in New York, he added, “Manhattan.”

“Give me the address.” She glanced back at him, smiled. “And don’t worry. I’ll get you home.”

Except he wasn’t going home. But that was okay. He just knew he wasn’t going to die there, wherever “there” might have been. And at the moment, that meant everything to him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Look at me.”

MacDermot lifted her head, one eye managing to open, the other swollen shut.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Think makeup will cover it?”

“Although I’ve always found lion males inherently stupid, I’m pretty sure that even Mace Llewellyn’s gonna notice this.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Crush tipped her head back a bit with one hand and carefully placed the ice pack on the swollen side of her face with the other.

“Ow,” she complained.

“You should have decked the bitch when you had the chance,” he reminded her.

“Gentry hates when I do that.”

Crush took her hand and placed it over the pack so she could hold it in place herself. Once he had her set, he sat down in the chair next to hers. “Why are we here?”

“Evil taxidermist.”

“And how do we know he’s evil?”

“Lots of reasons, but most important is the Smith sixth sense in play. Any time Dee-Ann Smith says, ‘Somethin’ ain’t right,’ something is usually not right.”

“This is my life now? Really? Listening to hillbilly She-wolves and their hillbilly gut reactions?”

“Her hillbilly gut reactions have saved my ass more than once. Suck it up.”

“And Martin’s sons?”

“Those idiots aren’t going anywhere without their mother. We’ll get them.”