The prep school girl was no love child, no by-blow from one of Bleak’s many mistresses over the years. No, the chubby, dark-haired, freckle-faced teen with the penchant for vanilla-vodka shooters and topless hot-tubbing was the real deal, Bleak’s only legitimate offspring, heir to his fortune-the blood running true. Seventeen years and nine months ago, after a violent rise up the ranks in the Chicago rackets, Franklin had bought himself a high-society wife off the East Coast who’d done her duty and then locked him out cold. There’d been no divorce. But the wife hadn’t stuck around either. She’d taken his money and his kid and hightailed it back to the coast. The only thing she’d left behind was his name-Bleak.

Without the name, the kid had been little more than a rumor, but a damned persistent rumor with enough clues to get Dax and Easy wondering why Franklin Bleak, a man with no previously observed altruistic tendencies, had endowed a little-known school in Colorado Springs and gotten himself appointed to the board of trustees. On top of which, for the last three years, he hadn’t missed a single Folton Ridge Flyers field hockey game. He was also the sole donor of the Flyers’ new uniforms, which they got every year-this information having been unearthed by Easy while she’d been chatting up the coach during an afternoon practice a week ago.

It had all fit, and despite having to witness a lot of adolescent hot-tub groping and the one girl upchucking the night’s libations, and despite being stuck in a traffic jam and running out of time, Dax was sitting easy.

He had Patsy.

He had the panatela.

And up ahead, at the top of the next rise in the road, he had an exit ramp to get him back on an open road heading into the hills. He wasn’t that far out from the city. He’d find his way into lower downtown, no matter how many cows he had to pass.

CHAPTER TEN

This couldn’t be right.

Esme looked at the car Johnny had stopped next to, a low-slung wreck in primer gray with a few haphazardly applied swaths of navy blue paint and one black stripe going up over the hood and down the deck, a fastback with a badly dented rear end and dirty whitewalls. The badge on the side panel said Cyclone.

She couldn’t have agreed more. The car looked like something that had been spit out of a hurricane and then rolled down a cliff.

“This is your car?” She had one hand pressed to her rib cage, trying to ease the stitch in her side. They’d sprinted the two blocks from Wazee up to Market, after making it down the warehouse fire escape.

“Yes.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket, checking the street in both directions, not at all winded. She was in shape. She went to the gym. She didn’t know where he went, but if it was a gym, he was living there.

“I thought you used to steal cars.” She checked the street, too, looking to see if Dovey and his crew were rounding a corner or pounding up the sidewalk.

“I did once…maybe twice,” Johnny admitted after a short pause.

Yeah, maybe twice. Maybe more than twice.

“Maybe you should have kept one of them.” The rear bumper on the Cyclone was held in place with a few wraps of baling wire and a length of twine and was still half falling off.

The look he gave her was unreadable-but it was definitely a look.

“It was just a suggestion.” Geez. The Challenger he’d picked her up in that long-ago summer night had been a beautiful car, and so freaking fast the takeoff had stolen her breath and jump-started her pulse. He should have kept that one.

He slid the key into the hunk-a-junk’s passenger-door lock and gave it a twist, but nothing happened.

Big surprise, she thought.

She looked back down toward Wazee and saw a guy running up the street-cripes. It was Dovey. Smollett hadn’t forgotten anything about the damn double dog dare.

“Hey,” she said, thinking she should give Johnny a heads-up.

“Yeah, yeah, I see him.”

Okay, but did he see-

“Yeah.”

Good. Great. Kevin and the Bear guy were lumbering after Dovey, shoving their way through anybody not smart enough to get out of their way.

What in the hell was she thinking? she wondered. Any advantage they’d had was in speed, and the Cyclone didn’t look like it had any-even if he could get in the damn thing.

And even if he did get in, she shouldn’t.

No, that wasn’t the smart move.

He jiggled the key, then jiggled it again, and she felt her tension rising with every little shake and wiggle.

Sure, logically, if he could get in and get it started, a car could outrun a guy, especially a guy like Kevin or somebody like the guy in the Bear’s jacket-but Dovey was looking pretty quick. He was gaining ground.

She glanced back at Johnny. He’d taken the key out and was shoving it back in very gently, very slowly.

Good God. If the suspense didn’t kill her, Franklin jerk-off Bleak might.

She needed to move.

“I’ll just go ahead and get a cab,” she blurted out, taking a step up the sidewalk. “Uh, thanks. For everything. Really. I’ll call you-”

The key turned.

“Get in the car,” he ordered, swinging the door wide.

He didn’t wait for her to obey, just stepped around her and headed for the driver’s side of the wreck.

Shit.

She grabbed the door and glanced down the street again, then slid her gaze back to Johnny, who was already dropping in behind the steering wheel, the ignition key in his hand.

If the Cyclone started, so help her God, she was getting in. Dovey had hit the sidewalk and was moving in fast-and she had to wonder, really: Just how damn badly did Bleak want her? And if he wanted her as badly as it looked, sending three of his boys after her, then, chances were, it would definitely be to her advantage to-

Geezus holy mother-the beat-up old car came to life with one twist of the key, sending a body-rocking vibration up through her hand, up her arm, and down her body all the way to her toes-and in that instant, inside of a heartbeat, the Cyclone ruled the street.

The hunk-a-junk was alive and well, tuned and timed to a rumbling roar of horsepower and headers, growling low in its throat like a feral cat, shaking like a wet dog, and making the glass rattle in the door frame.

She didn’t hesitate.

In one move, she was in the car, dropping into the passenger seat, reaching for the seat belt with one hand, and slamming the door behind her with the other. Johnny instantly spun the wheel, his feet working the pedals. Shoved up into first, and then second, the Cyclone slid fast and sleek into a break in the traffic.

She craned her head around, looking back toward Wazee, only to see Dovey standing stock-still on the sidewalk, his gaze riveted to Johnny, his mouth hanging half open.

Damn, damn, oh, double damn.

“I think Dovey has definitely recognized you,” she said, feeling beholden to warn him. For whatever reasons, he’d just saved her ass-again.

“Good,” he said, the word succinct. “It’ll give him something to think about.”

She arched an eyebrow in his direction, surprised at the coldness of his voice.

In high school-sure, Dovey would have definitely thought twice about messing with Johnny Ramos. In fact, he would have thought about it until he’d changed his mind. But Franklin Bleak wouldn’t, and Dovey worked for Bleak-at least according to Johnny, the guy in the driver’s seat, the one momentarily in charge.

Very momentarily, if she so chose.

She looked him over again, from the thick dark hair cut short on his head, to the lean, chiseled lines of his face. There was no “give” in the way he looked, no softness. His shoulders were broad under his shirt, his hands large and strong on the steering wheel, the way he moved filled with intent. He wasn’t the wild kid she’d known in school. He was something else. She just didn’t know what. No shot caller for some gang-she’d bet the house on that, and no errand boy for Franklin Bleak, setting her up for a takedown. Something about him was too straight. She felt it. Something emanating from his core, and it filled him with a confidence she’d only seen in a certain kind of guy. Guys like Dax.