“We have to go. Quickly.” She lifted Colton out of his seat, grabbed Maya’s hand and pulled them both toward the garage door. Cooper followed right on her heels, for once not asking any questions. Regina said nothing. She merely snagged both of their purses from the counter. She paused long enough in the mudroom to pull three already packed backpacks and two duffel bags from the closet.
Go bags. She had packed go bags for them all.
At Leah’s questioning look, she shrugged and tossed the bags into her SUV. “Old habits.”
God. This one day had been stressful enough. She couldn’t imagine living her life on the run for as many years as Regina and Marcus had. Poor Regina, always looking over her shoulder, fearing her own family would find her, kill her, and take her child to be raised in the Mafia. What hell that must have been.
Leah didn’t want that life for her children, but right now, she saw no other option than to run. She hustled the kids into the backseat of Regina’s SUV, but didn’t bother with the boys’ booster seats. She didn’t want them strapped in with no place to go in case bullets started flying again. “Get in the back and lie down flat.”
“But Mom,” Colton protested.
“Do it!” The command came out like a whip snap, and both of her boys stared at her as if they didn’t recognize her. If she wasn’t already terrified for their safety, she’d have been scared of those looks.
Honestly, she wasn’t sure she’d recognize herself right now.
She tried to get behind the wheel, but Regina shooed her into the back with the kids.
“Leave it to me.”
Leah wasn’t comfortable giving up so much control, but at the same time, she wanted to hold her kids and keep them safe from whatever was waiting on the other side of the garage door. “This is my mess. I should—”
“Protect your babies. I have experience with escape and evasion. Do you?”
No, she did not. She didn’t have the first clue what to do and was running on pure adrenaline-fueled instinct. That settled it. She climbed into the back of the SUV with her kids and gathered all three of them into her arms.
She held her breath as the garage door rattled open. Would they hear it and come running, guns drawn?
“Mom,” Maya said, her tiny voice shaking right along with her body. “What’s happening?”
“There are some bad men that came after me today at work. I think they’re here now, but Nana Gina will get us out of here.”
“Nana Gina is a superhero,” Colton declared.
“Damn right I am, kiddo.” Regina flashed them a reassuring grin over her shoulder—Marcus’s grin—then threw the SUV into reverse. “Hang on!”
The vehicle shot out of the garage with a squeal of tires, the top of the car scraping horribly against the bottom of the slowly rising garage door. Regina spun the wheel, handling the hulking vehicle like it was a sleek car made for taking tight corners. The SUV rocked, the kids cried out, and Leah held them tighter. Just when she thought they might flip over, the vehicle landed back on its four wheels and the treads gripped the pavement. As they sped away, she glanced back through the window. The two shadows she’d seen at the front door did indeed have guns, but they held them at their sides as they ran out onto the front lawn. They stared after the SUV. She couldn’t see their expressions in the darkness, but she imagined there was a whole lot of “WTF?” on their faces right now.
This was a nice neighborhood, a peaceful neighborhood, and all the noise already had lights popping on all up and down the street. 911 was probably flooded with all kinds of calls about the disturbance.
The two men raced away by foot. They’d probably parked far from the intended scene of the crime, and they’d be long gone before the police arrived. They wouldn’t be caught, but at least they weren’t giving chase.
Leah eased her grip on her babies and did a quick check. “Is everyone okay? Colton?”
He nodded. He had silent tears running down his face, but he was bravely trying to keep it together. “I’m okay.”
“My brave boy. Coop?”
Flushed with excitement, Cooper grinned. “That was awesome. Like a video game! Nana Gina is a superhero!”
And that response terrified her more than a little bit. This kid was fearless, already an adrenaline junkie. He was going to be the cause of every gray hair on her head. “Boys, get in your seats. Maya, honey, are you—?”
She flinched away from her mother’s touch, and Leah’s heart sank. The girl’s face was expressionless, completely unreadable in the yellow light of the passing streetlamps. Shutting down again, retreating behind her impenetrable wall. After all the progress they’d made this afternoon, those two assholes had ruined it.
“I’m okay,” Maya said, although she sounded anything but.
God. She wanted to wrap her arms around her girl, but it would only make her withdraw more. Leah knew it from those horrible weeks last summer. So instead she focused on the boys, helping them get buckled into their booster seats.
Maya sat in the far back, already buckled. She stared out the window, the side of her head pressed to the glass.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
Choking back tears, Leah climbed into the front passenger seat in time to see Regina zip up the interstate on-ramp and squeeze into merging traffic between a double-cab pickup and a Fiat, somehow managing to avoid grazing either of their bumpers. She then deftly switched lanes again and hit the gas.
Leah grabbed for the oh shit handle. “Can you—?”
“Slow down? So you want those men back there to catch us?”
“They aren’t following us.”
“Oh, amore. You have a lot to learn. Always assume they’re following. Now care to tell me what that was all about?”
She glanced back at the kids. Colton was entertaining Cooper with a retelling of their escape with plenty of embellishments—she was pretty sure she hadn’t seen Regina shoot lasers from her eyes at the bad guys. Maya was still staring out the window.
She shifted in her seat, leaning closer and lowering her voice. “I was attacked at work today by…I don’t know. They had guns. I got away only because a British man saved me.”
“British, huh? Was he handsome?”
“Regina, really?”
“What? It’s important to know all the details.”
“Now I know where Marcus gets it from.”
Regina gave an exaggerated sigh. “I take full responsibility for that. He is too much like me in all the worst ways. So, during the rescue, did the British man tell you why you were getting shot at?”