her.
Roni rolled away. She wished she could tell the loser he was messing with the wrong person, but her dented voice box blocked her sharp tongue. Anger surged within her. Had the man known her weapon of choice?
He reached for her again, and Roni kicked out. Her body flew back...right into an unmovable wall.
Her hand reached behind her. No, she realized, not a wall.
The legs of a second intruder blocked her. The solid mass of a strong-armed, muscled man in a black tank and unbuttoned white shirt towered over her. So much taller than the other guy...and so much bigger. She scooted to her right and crab-walked back, outnumbered and outwitted without her voice.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the guy standing over her barked.
“Me?” Roni squeaked, her throat strained. Her hand fumbled on empty pavement in a last-ditch effort to find her phone. “You’re on...my...property.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he replied, his voice low and disgusted.
In the light of the moon, she watched her assailant step up to the tall, hulking man. She craned her neck to see them face off with each other.
“What does it look like I’m doing? Tying up loose ends, because you were sleeping on the job. Now get inside so I can finish it.”
The tall man didn’t make a move. Just crossed his arms at his chest. “You can’t kill her. She’s Veronica Spencer, the owner. Do you have any idea of the media frenzy you would cause? She’s high profile. Her family wouldn’t stop until they got you and every person who knows you.”
“Well, she sure ain’t walking out of this place. Now get inside.”
Hanging around to see who won the battle wasn’t Roni’s style. She made a run for the moonlit outline of her Carrera, Spanish for race and career, but the loss of her career would be the least of her worries if she didn’t get her feet in gear.
Her breath hitched with each rapid footstep, one in front of the other. Her car closed in, her arms reached out. The door handle brushed her fingertips just as her scarred arm was yanked back in a vice grip. Instantly, her legs flew out in front of her as her body smacked hard into the shorter guy’s chest.
He held her with both arms this time. She couldn’t budge in any direction or with any part of her body. Her squirms and painful screams did nothing as he dragged her back to the garage.
“Open the door, Gunn.”
“I told you, you can’t kill her.” It was the big guy talking. Would he help her?
“And you’re not in charge. I am. You keep forgetting that.”
She took that as a no.
Gunn opened the door as instructed, and Roni saw her first real glimpse of him as the short guy carried her over the threshold. Blond hair, curls at his nape and eyes that tripped her up. She went for Gunn’s baby blues, demanding he look at her. See me, she wanted to say. Look at me. I’m a person.
Conflict resided in their depths, but no compassion.
He turned away, and she knew he would be of no help. What a waste of a handsome face, she thought. He obviously lacked brains in exchange for it.
Roni accepted her solo fight, but that would mean coming up with some fast thinking on her part.
First off, who were these men?
Were they friends of Uncle Clay? It would explain their presence in her garage if it was her uncle who let them on the property. Uncle Clay may have fooled the rest of her family into believing his innocent spiel about his involvement in the car crash that killed her parents, but he didn’t fool her. He knew more than he let on, and she wouldn’t stop digging until she discovered everything.
But just how far would he go to stop her?
Would he invite criminals to her track to do his dirty work?
The door slammed behind Roni, cutting her off from the world and locking her inside with killers.
She craned her neck to see how many closed in on her. She swallowed past the burning pain in her throat and spoke as strong as she could muster. “You’re not going to get away with this. I have family in the CIA.” Not a total lie, just not sure if her grandfather could be contacted fast enough to save her. The man lived a secret life.
Her peripheral vision showed four men approaching, tools in their hands. Big metal crowbars and wrenches no doubt meant to silence her.
“You were saying?” The small but extremely strong man holding her spoke into her ear, his breath hot and putrid.
Roni turned her face away to Gunn, the man who had saved her outside, if she could call it saving. In the full garage light, she thought his baby blues and blond curls warred against this whole lethal scene. He didn’t look like the other guys with their shaved heads and tattoos etched into the sides of their necks, heads and arms. He also carried no wrench or any other tool to be used against her. But perhaps his weapon of choice wasn’t of the visible kind.
No weapon formed against me shall prosper. The scripture popped into Roni’s mind from someplace deep and forgotten. Cora had prayed it over her as a child, but it had been years since the Spencer family’s maid had repeated the words. Roni had made it clear to Cora that when it came to God, she didn’t want to hear about anything He had to say. But in these dire moments, Roni didn’t question why His words came to mind now...only the fact that they brought on a sense of empowerment.
Power that she would need against these men.
They looked at her with such hatred. Maybe they weren’t friends of Uncle Clay’s, but of Jared’s. That would really explain the flaming eye-daggers coming her way. Jared Finlay still sulked about her terminating their relationship.
Roni lifted her chin. Jared used her to jump-start his racing career. He got what was coming to him, exactly what he deserved.
And so would these lowlifes.
“What are you doing in my garage?” she demanded and glanced around the bays. Three vans, painted white, rear windows replaced with metal inserts to block the view to inside; car parts strewn about.
She had her answer but didn’t want to believe it. Maybe she was wrong.
Yeah right, like these guys were legit.
“You’re using my garage to clone cars?” she rasped angrily.
Car cloning was a federal offense. Stealing the identity of a legitimately owned vehicle and slapping it onto a stolen car in a chop shop gave the car a new identity so it could be used for criminal activity. Drug deals, mafia jobs, drive-by shootings, you name it. Criminals could get away with a lot when their cars didn’t out them.
Roni sneered at the men. “How dare you use Spencer Speedway as your chop shop. I will not allow you to link my business to your crimes.”
Gunn’s eyes narrowed. His arms crossed at his front as they had outside.
“How did you know
