Misha closed the phone carefully. He put it on the table, then let his head thunk down on the map next to it. Three days. Fuck. This was the kind of thing that could drive a man to drink.

SEVEN

THE ground was shaking. The air vibrated with a dull roar. The stink of rubber and exhaust fumes was everywhere. Still mostly unconscious, Riley muttered a protest when a bright light burned through his closed eyelids.

He’d have turned away his face, but his limbs felt so heavy and he was still so tired. He couldn’t rouse himself enough to twitch, let alone move with a purpose. Something huge and dark shrieked past his prone body and pelted him with dust and gravel, but by then the light was gone and Riley couldn’t care less. He lay there for a minute or two, woozy and doing his best impression of roadkill as he struggled through the cobwebs in his mind to try to figure out what the hell had happened. He remembered glimpsing one of Misha’s men at the Southern Screw and hotfooting it out of town, because the only weapon he had was his dad’s old Heckler & Koch pistol and he didn’t intend to ever use it on a human being. He’d been driving, drinking coffee, and then… then….

“Hey, buddy, you okay?”

Riley blinked open his eyes carefully and quizzically stared at the pair of scuffed cowboy boots in front of his face for a moment. Something was wrong with that picture.

“Hey. Hey, can you hear me?”

Deep voice, Midwestern-flat, wary but with a hint of concern beneath.

The boots shifted, were replaced by knees in grimy jeans. A hand closed around Riley’s shoulder, shook him carefully. It helped bring him back, made him realize he was lying on the ground, cheek pressed against the cooling surface of the I-10 emergency lane next to his truck. He just didn’t know how he’d gotten there. Had he passed out? Why would he? He tried to roll over and was surprised to find he could do so easily. Somehow, he’d expected to hurt. He wasn’t sure why.

“I’m okay.”

His throat ached a bit, but not too bad. It felt like the aftermath of giving a really good blowjob or maybe the first twinges of a minor cold. He sat up and finally took in his surroundings, unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched—and not by the guy who was eying him critically now. The Good Samaritan was the only one there, though, so Riley dismissed the notion and focused on the man. He was stocky and bearded, well-worn around the edges in a way that spoke of a long time on the road.

Riley assumed he was a trucker because there was a big-ass truck parked a few yards ahead that explained the noise and the lights that had woken him.

Hard to sleep with an eighteen-wheeler braking right next to you.