did.
She rode out of the alley and onto the street that would lead her to the highway and the hospital. Within two minutes, she knew she was being followed.
Her first inclination was that it was Ranger Stevens keeping tabs on her, but the jacked-up piece-of-crap car following her was no Texas Ranger vehicle.
She scowled and narrowed her eyes. Of course, anyone could be following her, but after the Ranger’s visit and information, Alyssa had the sneaking suspicion it was all related.
Maybe her brothers had ignored her existence since she’d been kidnapped and then released, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t find her if they wanted to.
If they were after her now, they wouldn’t give up until they got her. But that didn’t mean she had to go down easy. Certainly not after they’d abandoned her.
She took a sharp turn onto a side street, then weaved in and out of traffic the way the car couldn’t. She took a few more sharp turns, earning honks and angry middle fingers from other drivers, but eventually she found herself in a dark, small alley. She killed her engine and stood there straddling her bike, breathing heavily.
Did her brothers know Ranger Stevens was investigating their mother’s death? Did they have something to hide?
She squeezed her eyes shut, finding her even breathing. They couldn’t have killed their mother. They couldn’t have. Alyssa couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
Her phone rang and she swore, expecting it to be news about Natalie’s baby. Instead, it was a number she didn’t recognize. Her brothers?
She hit Accept cautiously, and adopted her best take-no-crap tone. “What?”
“You’re being tailed.”
She scowled at Ranger Steven’s voice. “I’m well aware. I lost them.”
“Yeah, well, I’m tailing them now.”
“Idiot,” she muttered. How had this man stepped into her life for fifteen minutes and scrambled everything up?
“What?” Ranger Stevens spluttered.
Alyssa had to think fast. To move. Oh, damn the man for getting in the way of things. “Listen, I’m coming back out. I want you to let them follow me. And when they take me, I need you to not get in the way.” Her brothers had never come for her, and she’d stopped expecting them, but if they were coming for her now...she was ready.
As long as she could get rid of the Texas Ranger trying to protect her.
Bennet wanted to argue, but he had to keep too much of his attention on following the men who’d been following Alyssa to try to outtalk this girl.
Let them take her? “Are you crazy?”
“We both know it’s someone from my family, or sent by them anyway. If I let them take me, I get information.”
“And end up like your mother.” Which was probably too blunt when she’d only just found out about her mother, but he couldn’t keep compassion in place when she was talking about getting herself abducted.
He heard a motorcycle engine roar past him, and swore when Alyssa waved at him.
He tossed his phone into the passenger seat and followed. It was reckless and possibly stupid not to call for backup. But while Captain Dean had given him the go-ahead to take on this case, Bennet wasn’t ready to bring in other people yet. He needed more information. He needed to know what he was dealing with.
The fact of the matter was he had no idea what he was dealing with when it came to Alyssa Jimenez.
She cut in front of the car that had originally been following her. He watched the streetlights streak across her quickly moving form, and she waved at those guys too.
She was crazy.
While Bennet had been worried in the beginning that the tail’s goal had been to hurt Alyssa, it was clear they were after something else. If they wanted to hurt her, they could run her off the road and drive away. No one would know the difference except him, and Bennet didn’t think they knew they had a tail.
It was clear they wanted Alyssa. Whole. She had wanted him to let them take her, so it seemed she knew she wasn’t in imminent danger from these people, as well.
Was she working with them? Was he the fool here?
Except when she finally quit driving, he could only stare from his place farther down the street. She’d led them to the public parking of the Texas Rangers headquarters.
What on earth was this woman up to?
She parked in the middle of the mostly empty parking lot—employees parked in the back and public visitors rarely arrived at night. The car that had been following her stopped at the parking lot entrance. Clearly her followers didn’t know what to do with this.
Bennet made a turn, keeping the parking lot in view from his rearview window. When the car didn’t follow, the occupants instead kept their attention on Alyssa, he knew they hadn’t seen him following them.
He made a quick sharp turn into the back lot and then drove along the building, parking as close as he could to where Alyssa was without being seen. He got out of his car and unholstered his weapon. He crept along the building, keeping himself in the shadows, watching as the car still idled in the entrance while Alyssa sat defiantly on her motorcycle in the middle of the parking lot, parking lights haloing her.
That uncomfortable thing from before tightened in his gut at the way the light glinted off her dark hair when she pulled off her helmet. Something a little lower than his gut reacted far too much at the “screw you” in the curve of her mouth. She looked like some fierce warrior, some underground-gang queen. He should not be attracted to that even for a second.
Apparently some parts of his anatomy weren’t as interested in law and order as his brain was.
“What are you guys? Chicken?” Alyssa called out.
Bennet nearly groaned. She would have to be the kind of woman who’d provoke them.
“How about this—you send a message to my brothers. You tell them if they want me, they can come get me themselves. No cut-rate, brainless thug is going to take me anywhere I don’t want to go.”
The engine revved, and Bennet moved closer. He wasn’t going to let these men take his only lead on this case. Even if she was trying to get herself killed.
But in the end, the car merely backed out and screeched away.
Leaving him and Alyssa in a mostly empty parking lot.
She turned to face him as if she’d known he was there all along. “I bet that got their attention, huh?” she said. She didn’t walk toward him, so he walked to her.
“Yes. How smart. Piss off your criminal brothers you claim to have nothing to
