for you.”
Ellie stood in the middle of the busy street, barely noticing the group of kids playing an impromptu game of soccer, or the loud hip-hop beat pumping through someone’s radio. Because her aunt’s revelation was like a punch to the gut. She’d kept her aunt in the dark in order to protect her, but if Audrey knew she was alive, who else did?
She started walking again. “I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t, and I don’t have time to explain right now.” Her aunt sounded frantic. Terrified of something. “All you need to know is that I hired a private detective to find you, but he’s been murdered. He’d managed to track down your cell phone and where you are, but now I’m afraid that the men who killed him have that information and know where you are. I’m so, so sorry, Ellie, but you need to run.”
Ellie’s mind fought to untangle her aunt’s words. Because nothing made sense. No one besides her father’s best friend, Jarrod Kendall, knew where she was. He’d assured her of that, and she trusted him with her life. He’d arranged for her false papers, a visa and even the leak to the media that her body had been discovered in the fire. Which was why everyone believed she was dead.
“Where are you now?” her aunt asked. “Because you need to leave Rio.”
“In the favela where I work. I was on my way to grab lunch for my team—”
“You can’t go back to your work or to your apartment.”
Ellie bit back the list of questions she needed to ask and looked behind her, feeling vulnerable even in the middle of the crowded favela. How had a private detective managed to track her down?
“How much time do I have?” she asked her aunt.
“Not long. They have the same information I do, which means they could be there right now.”
A sick feeling spread through her.
“Then I’ve got to go,” Ellie said. “I’ll call as soon as I can.”
She forced her mind to click through her options. If her aunt was right, then she couldn’t go back to the center where she worked. Nor could she go home or to any of her friends here. She was going to have to disappear. Again. The familiar sense of fear she’d lived with over the past few months washed through her. She had no reason not to trust her aunt. Unless someone had gotten to her as well.
Ellie hurried down a narrow flight of cement stairs, past a woman hanging up her laundry. A young girl swept the walk outside her house. Children played in the narrow thoroughfare with graffiti on the walls.
She glanced behind her up the alley. There was no way they could find her here. Was there? A man in black jeans and a white T-shirt darted down the stairs behind her, almost knocking down one of the kids who was playing. His cold gaze caught hers as he headed toward her.
They’d found her.
Ellie smashed the cell phone against the pavement, then started running, careful not to lose her balance on the uneven pavement as she raced down the street. Her aunt had been right. Going back to her apartment wasn’t an option. She had her passport and some cash with her in her leather messenger bag. Now she just needed to get to the bus terminal, where she’d left a bugout bag in one of the long-term lockers in case something like this happened, and leave the city.
She turned down another street, then glanced behind her, unsure if she’d lost the guy with all the pedestrian traffic. No...he was still coming toward her. She needed a way out. A motorcycle sat fifty feet ahead of her. There was something familiar about the tall, muscular driver who had turned around to see what the commotion was.
Ryan Kendall?
The last time she remembered seeing him was on a trip to his family ranch well over a decade ago, where he’d driven her crazy with his dumb jokes and juvenile pranks.
“Hurry,” he shouted, handing her a helmet.
There was no time to ask what Jarrod Kendall’s son was doing here. Instead, she jumped on the back of the seat, grabbed onto his waist and shouted for him to go. He zipped around a group of women, then headed for the main road as her pursuer disappeared behind them.
A minute later, Ellie’s heart was still pounding as Ryan merged into the traffic. She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms tighter around his waist as he took the turn too fast for her comfort. It was one thing sitting behind a mototaxi driver who knew the streets of Rio like the back of his hand. She was quite sure Ryan, on the other hand, would be completely lost without his rented GPS.
He sped down the freeway like a local, but even that didn’t help loosen the knots in her stomach as she pressed against his back. It wasn’t rush hour, but the traffic was still congested. Someone honked behind them. She tried to slow her breathing. She knew that Arias’s operation was extensive, though Ryan’s father had assured her that she’d be out of Arias’s reach here in Rio. Apparently, that wasn’t true. All she wanted right now was to find somewhere safe, where they couldn’t get to her.
But they’d just proved that place didn’t exist.
Ellie glanced behind her, unable to shake the uneasiness that had settled over her. The surrounding mountains boxed in the city, helping to add to the congested traffic, which was why she always took a taxi in order to avoid driving. Something in her peripheral vision caught her eye. A motorcycle was weaving in and out of traffic as it sped toward them. If it was the same guy she’d caught coming after her in the favela... She squeezed her arms tighter around Ryan’s waist as they flew past a large truck.
“You okay?” Ryan shouted above the noise of the busy freeway.
“No.” She leaned against him and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I think we’re being followed.”
* * *
Ryan glanced in the side mirror at the motorcycle closing in behind them. He couldn’t help but wonder for a split second how he’d managed to find himself speeding down a highway in the middle of Rio with a possible cartel member behind him, instead of scuba diving in the middle of the Atlantic like he’d planned. He sped up, then weaved in between two cars, trying to determine if Ellie’s theory was correct. But the other motorcycle also increased its speed and continued to bridge the distance between them.
Definitely not a coincidence.
He glanced in his side mirror again, trying to deduce what the other rider was planning to do. Running them off the road was always a possibility. Or maybe he’d simply been planning to follow them and hadn’t expected to be made. Ellie’s arms squeezed tighter around his waist, making him wonder what he’d been thinking when he’d impulsively rented the motorcycle. There was nothing heroic about rescuing a maiden in distress only to throw her into another life-threatening situation.
The back window of the car to their right shattered. Ryan swerved to miss hitting the car as it fishtailed, and almost ran into a single-cab truck before the car hit the center barrier, then skidded to a stop behind them.
But there was no way they could stop. The armed motorcyclist had just made his intentions perfectly clear.
“Hold on.” Ryan pressed on the accelerator, praying as he worked to stretch out the gap between them. “We need to lose him.”
“There’s
