Devil's Due [h.s.]

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

HARRY'S P.O.V.:

River fled from the room before I could say anything else, leaving me there half-livid and half-astonished as I watched her go. With a final glance over her shoulder, once she reached the hallway, she called out, "I'll meet you down there once you've cooled off."

"God, just wait–" I muttered under my breath, jogging to catch up to her. She was already beginning her descent of the stairs when I finally slipped into the hall, pulling the door shut behind me. Tucking my gun back into the waistband of my pants, I took a few quick steps until I was at her side in the stairwell.

She glanced briefly over at me. I, however, kept my gaze trained steadily ahead – not wanting to see that fucking outfit one more second that I had to before I went absolutely insane. She was right, as much as I hated to admit. It wasn't my right to comment on how she was dressing nor what she could and couldn't do but that didn't mean I wasn't allowed to be pissed off.

Which was why the only solution I could rightly fathom in this situation was to keep my mouth shut. To keep all of these thoughts to myself.

"Oh my god," she blurted the moment we stepped out of the hotel and onto the pavement. She shielded her face from the sun with her hand, her gaze flitting between the four black vans in front of us. "Are these all coming with us?"

"That's ours," I jerked my chin toward the second one, hovering a hand over the small of her back and urging her forward. With another quick look in her direction, I sighed inwardly and reached up to grab the sunglasses I had strung from the neck of my shirt. "You need to start wearing a hat or something," I muttered, lowering her hand from her face and placing the sunglasses over her eyes.

She gave an apologetic shrug, reaching up to adjust how they sat on her ears. "Thank you."

"C'mon," my hand closed around her waist this time, guiding her toward the car.

Before I could interject, she stepped forward and pulled open the passenger side door, only stumble backward into my still extended palm a moment later. "Sorry," she mumbled to the man in the suit who didn't so much as blink in her direction. He only nodded, his eyes still focused forward, before leaning out to yank the door back shut.

"Why didn't you warn me?" she hissed, directing herself instead to the back seats. She slid inside, crossing her arms over her chest, eyeing me when I slipped inside after her. Her voice lowered. "Woulda been nice to know about the fucking CIA agents driving us."

I snorted, sliding the door shut and then leaned forward to tap twice on the console. "They definitely do not work for the CIA," I mumbled softly, leaning back and adjusting myself slightly as we began to roll into movement. The van was smaller than what we normally took, meaning I barely had enough room to straighten my legs.

When I glanced over, River was still staring at the two men in the front seats. Her attention only snapped back to me when I clicked a button to bring the privacy screen down, separating the four of us. She drew in a small breath, smoothing her hands over her thighs before beginning to fiddle with my sunglasses that she'd taken off and put in her lap. It took an extra amount of effort to look away.

"They're wearing wires," she whispered.

"They can't hear you when the screen is down." I turned back to look at her, my eyes dipping once to her lips – that fucking red – before I was able to drag them back up. "And they're wearing them to communicate with us." She still looked unconvinced. "Riv, they're security. They work for us. They're the same wires you have on."

This seemed to pique her interest. She was still looking at me when a hand absentmindedly ghosted up to her chest, the pads of her fingers running down her sternum – where I assumed the wire was taped that Morgan helped to put on her. Finally, after a few seconds, she nodded.