Hell Bent

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Annabelle threw open the car door at the next stop light and jumped out of the car. It was the fastest series of maneuvers she had ever managed, involving her seat belt and the door at once.

“Annabelle!” Jack reached out for her a split second too late. She raced, blindly, down the street beside the cars, irrespective of where she was going or what she was going to do when she got there. She was so angry – so fueled by a passion beyond her understanding – that she simply needed to get away. To run away as fast and as far as she could. She needed wind and didn’t have a bike. Running would have to do.

It was either escape, or pull the gun out of the holster strapped to her thigh beneath her dress and kill Jack Thane with it.

Behind Jack’s black luxury sedan, three other dark colored cars threw open their doors and Jack’s hired guns shot from the cars to race after Annabelle.

Jack had his own door open and was sliding over the roof of the sedan just as the first of his men joined him. “Go around!” he bellowed the order, not slowing as he tore down the street after her.

Absently, Annabelle was extremely glad that she’d chosen to wear flats. She was equally glad that she was a very fast runner; long legs helped a lot, and years of gymnastics and running, despite the pain, had made her agile and strong.

Her hips were already beginning to ache, but she ignored them, enraged beyond any ability to reason.

Behind her, Jack dodged passers-by and sprinted at full speed to catch up with the fleeing woman fifty yards ahead. He’d considered the possibility of her doing something like this but had honestly believed that Annabelle possessed more sense than to take off on her own in an unfamiliar city, without an escort. When Godrick Osborne so badly wanted her dead.

He’d been wrong. She possessed no sense at all whatsoever.

He winced as he thought to himself, or she’s so bloody beyond pissed that she doesn’t give a fucking toss what the hell happens any more…

And when it came down to it, he knew damned well that she possessed a good deal of common sense. Everyone had their breaking point. He’d simply pushed her too far.

He swore under his breath as she turned a corner and shot out of sight.

At that moment, Annabelle hated everything about Jack Thane. She hated what he was and everything he stood for, with his codes and guns and tranquilizers and his false marriages and his hired goons spying on her for… How long? How long had she had shadows following her, knowing her secrets, watching her from the darkness like fucking peeping toms?

What of the boys she’d dated since meeting Jack Thane? Now that she considered it, they hadn’t exactly been dates. They’d all broken up with her after barely meeting her and before they’d even had a chance to get to know her. One had only so much as asked her out when he called that night to say that he’d suddenly changed his mind.

Suddenly.

It was Jack all along.

She screamed in wordless outrage, but the sound was captured and drowned by the thunder that rolled overhead and the rain that began to slam into the world around her by the bucket load.

In the heat of it, she managed to retain just enough sanity to know that there was no way, in the end, she could out-run Jack Thane. He would catch up with her. And she would have to shoot him. And she wasn’t sure she would feel too good about that. You know, when she’d had time to cool off. Later.

She realized that the only way to get away from him long enough to have any real time to think was to hide. But where?

She knew nothing practical about London. Except that she could now confirm that the rain did seem to come at the most inopportune moments, as a friend had once jokingly told her. She was running full-tilt and that didn’t give her time to slow down and notice anything.

And she could feel them closing in on her. She could feel Jack and the others. Like homing beacons that had spread out into a city that they were a hell of a lot more familiar with than she was. She felt desperate, in that instant. So very, very desperate.

What would she have to do in order to get away?

Air left her lungs in a painful rush as he tackled her from behind, lifting her off of the ground with an arm around her waist and a hard spinning motion that shoved her roughly into an adjoining alley and up against a wall.

She gasped as her lungs expanded again and she found herself struggling immediately, rage and pain fueling her movements. But he held her fast, her wrists pinned to the bricks above her, his body pressed against hers to keep her from kicking him.

“I can’t believe you’d be so bloody stupid, Bella!” He roared at her, his words melding with the thunder that cracked above them. “You’ll get yourself killed!” His face was inches from hers, his blue eyes boring holes into her soul. His accent had deepened with his fury.

“Fuck you, Jack!” She screamed into his face. “How could you do this to me, you goddamned son of a bitch! I trusted you!” She tried, with all her might, to yank her arms out of his grip. All she could think about was how he’d violated her trust, lied to her, and continued to lie to her over and over again. How many times had she unknowingly bared her body to one of his men by undressing in front of a window where the curtain wasn’t completely shut? How many times had she gone to the doctor for things she didn’t want the world to know about – only to have his men give him a detailed report? And she wondered, too. She wondered how many other things he knew about her. Had he had her researched? Would he even tell her if he had?

She couldn’t trust Jack, despite the fact that he’d put his trust in her and she had never – not once – violated that trust, even though it hadn’t always been easy. That really hurt. It hurt. It hurt so bad that she desperately wanted to make him hurt more.

Annabelle wanted out of Jack Thane’s world – the Business and all of the wrong that it stood for. At that moment, in fact, Annabelle sort of wanted to die.

She bucked in his grip, bucked against the pain inside, the bricks behind her tearing the skin on the backs of her hands as she twisted madly. The rain had soaked them both, and her ire-fueled strength finally allowed one arm to slip free. It was her right arm, and her sprained shoulder screamed at her as she quickly balled up her fist and struck the side of his face as hard as she could.

Jack’s head snapped to the side under the impact. His left ear began to ring. Thunder cracked again overhead, lightning illuminating the alley.

Pain and frustration got the better of Jack and he grabbed her wrist roughly again, using it to spin her around, jerking her back against his chest. He then twisted the injured arm up behind her back until she cried out in pain.

“Stop fighting me!” He bellowed.

“No!” Pain arced through the right side of her body, but he didn’t let up. “Let me go!” She sobbed into the wet night as he grabbed her other wrist and proceeded to twist it, too, behind her back, until he had both arms firmly under his control.

“You lied to me Jack!” She yelled the accusations, even as he placed both of her slim wrists into his left hand and used his right to pull her against him. “How many times did you lie to me!”

Jack could feel her trembling against him and he desperately wanted it to stop.

“I’ve never lied to you, Bella!” He yelled into her ear. “Not once! Now, stop fighting me!” He growled the last part, angry at her for hurting herself as she fought him, and frustrated, at the same time, that any of this was happening.

“You bastard!” She fought wildly in his grip, wanting nothing more than to get free and turn around and rip his head off. He knew her struggles would cause her injury, knew she was bruising in his grip. But he wouldn’t let her go. Not for anything.

Jack was in Hell. His heart was breaking; he couldn’t believe how badly it hurt. He couldn’t believe the harsh