Lily was so mad she was practically levitating off the ground. She nodded to Jay’s gun. “His aim better be good because if I get to you first, I’m gonna reach down your throat, grab your balls, and show ’em to you.”
“Lily,” Leo whispered in warning.
Bradley grinned at her in genuine delight, showing a row of pearly teeth. He pushed his golden hair off his forehead. “You are so different than any woman I’ve ever seen Leo with.” He stepped forward. “I know you won’t believe me, but I’m genuinely bummed about how this is going down. It didn’t have to go this way, you know?” He gestured behind him, as if the decision that led to all of this was just past where they could see. “The original plan was to take the journal and pass it off to these guys. But Terry left it sticking out of the bag, and Nicole noticed, and it all went to hell. I’m just here for the cash. I’m not here for all this drama.”
“The cash?” Leo said. “You don’t need this. You have—”
“An associate professor’s salary and a fuckton of debt. It’s impossible to get out from under it,” Bradley admitted, looking vulnerable for just a moment.
“Dude. How much—”
“Enough,” Bradley cut Leo off. “We’ve been planning this for so long, it just really pisses me off that it got this complicated.”
Heat rose to the surface of Lily’s skin. “Are you implying that you have some claim to this money because you’ve spent so much time planning to steal my father’s journal? Are you really saying that right now?”
“Like I said, it’s a finders keepers situation, darling,” he told her. “Those were clearly Duke’s rules, too. You can’t even tell me you’re sure he wanted you to have it.” Lily made to bolt forward again, but Leo held her back. Bradley laughed. “You’re so fiery. I like you, Lily Wilder. I think you liked me, too.”
Then he winked at her.
She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “Eat shit, Brad.”
This only delighted him more. “I get it, Leo. I get why you were so hung up on her for so long.”
Beside her, Leo was not amused. “Why did you even bring me and Walter here?” Leo asked. “You could have come with Terry and done this on your own. You didn’t have to drag us into it.”
“Do you really think Lily wouldn’t notice if her journal went missing?” He grinned proudly at Leo. “Terry was the one who’d done all the digging into Duke Wilder’s past. He was the one who convinced me the money is still out here. But I was the one who thought to distract her with her ex-boyfriend.”
Leo, finally, looked genuinely wounded rather than angry. “You said you didn’t know Lily was the girl from the ranch.”
Bradley shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard to piece together, dude.”
“This is boring as hell.” Jay pointed his gun at Lily, and Leo tensed at her side. “Can we get back to the point here? The first directions were wrong. Drop the knife and take us to the right place.”
When she didn’t move, he swung the gun at Leo. “Think real hard, Lily Wilder.”
Lily calculated how long it would take to reach Bradley and knew it was no use. Opening her fist, she let the knife fall to the ground.
“Good,” Bradley said, and bent to pick it up. “Now tell me the correct directions.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Leo said.
Bradley smiled, walking closer and lifting his hand to move a strand of hair off Lily’s face. Leo reached out, grabbing Bradley’s wrist, as a gun cocked off to the side.
“Leo,” Bradley said quietly. “Brother. Take us there, or leave us with all the information, but don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
“Why are you risking your job, our friendship—everything for this?” Leo asked. “Why didn’t you just talk to me? I don’t get it.”
“You wouldn’t get it,” Bradley said simply. “Mr. Responsible would never get himself into this situation, and I admire that, but I got mixed up in some stuff you wouldn’t understand and am in so deep these guys are going to straight-up kill me if I don’t get my hands on a lot of cash. Want to save my life? Help your best friend out.”
Leo shook his head, looking away. Bradley waved Kevin forward. “He needs encouragement, I guess.”
“It’s getting dark,” Lily said, and Kevin stopped. The sun had begun its steep descent; shadows were growing longer by the second, and in the canyon, the sky went from dim to dark in a snap. Within an hour, they could easily step off a cliff or walk right into a clump of prickly pear. There was a good reason why you didn’t wander around at night in the desert. “We won’t be able to see a fucking thing.”