Raven's POV
My brain rattled as my eyes opened slowly back to the world.
I jumped up from the chair I had been propped up in. I remembered falling to the floor, yet I was waking up on a chair in Jake's office.
A hunting knife clattered to the floor just before my feet. The noise was sharp, grating my ears. It had fallen from me. My hands were stained heavily with blood, some of which had also been sprinkled on my jacket, pants, and boots. I looked from myself to Jake's corpse, to his slit neck and his blank stare at the ceiling.
It dawned fast on me. "The bastard," I yelled half-aloud, grinding my teeth so hard my jaw ached. The killer was framing me for the murder of Jake.
He'd set me up so when the cops walk in, they see guilt at first glance.
I stared blankly at the scene. Why would the killer frame me for Jake's murder? Someone who could beat Jake's security and get in here to kill Jake obviously would have made sure he didn't leave any clue of himself to give police a hint about him. Why frame me for a murder he could equally get away with without framing me?
Panic clawed its way up my throat. I folded my fingers into tight fists to get a firm grip on myself and stop my hands from shaking.
Freaking out never saved anyone—not on a racetrack and sure as hell not on a murder scene.
I dragged one shaky breath through my teeth and forced my brain to switch gears. Think, Raven. Think fast.
Jake was dead. My prints, or what looked like them, were around the place. On the chair I was propped on, on the door handle, and especially on the knife. The bastard who knocked me out had also painted me with enough blood to make me look guilty.
If the police met me here then I was done. If I ran stupidly, and the police found the crime scene with my prints around, especially on the knife, I was cooked also. I had no choice. I had to clean the crime scene.
I had to leave this place like I was never here. I scanned the room methodically. My gaze coming back to rest on Jake's dead eyes. I grind my teeth.
Near the window was a heel print—too narrow to be a man's. The fat crook must have had a broad near when he was gutted. Whoever she was, she must have been in on the kill too. I would have said she was the killer, but the blurred face I saw before I was knocked out earlier looked nothing like a woman's, at least, not any woman Jake would have considered a lay.
But none of that helped me now. I couldn't give a damn who the killer was. That was the work of detectives.
Ignoring my pounding skull, I reached for the hunting knife with two fingertips, holding it like it was radioactive. I cleaned my prints off it with my pants. I would have to burn my clothes later anyways. The blood on them was a giveaway.
I took off my jacket, and I took care of my prints on the chair too, then I scanned the place for security cameras. A property as big as this might have one.
If the cameras captured my presence? Then I was finished.
I crossed the room quickly, checking corners. Sure enough, I spotted one camera in the corner above the bookshelf, its red light blinking faintly.
Except… I looked closer, peering on my toes. The lens had been shot out. Just like me, the killer didn't want to be seen either.
That meant no footage of me entering. Good. That was my window. There would be no footage of me leaving either.
The hallway stretched long and dark, shadows swallowing everything except a thin strip of moonlight across the floor. I kept low, hugged the wall, and listened. No footsteps. No whispers. Not even guards.
Jake always had men around. Yet, tonight, they had all evaporated. It was either they were in on his death, or the killer had killed them too. Both of which I decided not to bother about. My one goal was to leave and leave fast. I would have to find Jace another way.
I retraced every step—careful not to touch doors, walls, or anything that would hold prints. My gloves were good, but paranoia kept me on my toes.
At the side entrance, I paused, pressing my ear to the glass wall gently, careful not to let them touch. I listened for any surprises. But I heard none. So I eased the door open.
Cold air slapped my face, and I inhaled hard, letting a rush of fresh air in to clear my head.
The grass hissed just as I was about to haul myself over the fence. It was quick, and sharp—the sound of someone running.
I spun, but this time I didn't let panic take the wheel. I braced, shifted my stance, and let the racer in me take over—fast reflex, and calculation first.
A man lunged out of the shadows, huge, shooting his arms in the air to battle me to the ground.
I pivoted left, letting his momentum carry him past me. He hit the ground shoulder-first with a grunt, grass shuddering beneath his weight.
He pushed up fast. The bastard moved too fast for a guy his size. His face was locked in a murderous snarl and fury, jaw clenched tight. He charged again for me.
"Dante. Stop." A voice cut through the night like a blade. Dante froze mid-step, chest heaving.
I turned toward the voice.
A man stepped into the wash of moonlight, and the night seemed to rearrange around him. He was tall—six-two, maybe six-three—with a slightly muscular but highly athletic frame. He wore a tailored suit that probably cost more than all the wheels I have ever driven.
But it wasn't the suit. It wasn't even the height. It wasn't even the fact that he was about the closest thing to male eye candy that I would ever see. There was a lethal aura to him. Every inch of him screamed more danger than a speeding truck coming at you at full speed on a one-way road.
His eyes found mine, a sharp piercing blue. The smirk that curved his mouth was slow… and dangerous. "Well," he murmured, eyes dragging over the blood on my clothes, "looks like you're the one who finished off Flanagan."
He stepped closer, hands in his pockets, his smirk now darker. "You have no idea," he said softly, "what kind of trouble you've just driven into, girl."
Screw him and his trouble. I didn't wait to hear the rest. I sprinted fast for the fence, fingers reaching for the top, the barbed wire be damned.
Dante slammed into me from behind like a linebacker on steroids, and we hit the ground hard.
His weight crashed onto me, knocking air out of my lungs. My ribs screamed. My skull throbbed, and my visioned whitened to a blur.
"Let me go, bastard," I snarled, thrashing under him, kicking, twisting, anything to get leverage, but he was over three hundred pounds of pure, trained muscle pinning me like I was nothing but a puny rabbit.
"Easy, Dante," the blue-eyed man drawled from behind. "She's valuable."
Valuable. I shook against the grass, jerking my gaze briefly to meet the dark smirk trapped on his lips. What the hell did the bastard mean by that?