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Chapter 445
Chapter 445:
Crawford moved toward the driver’s side. Then he stopped abruptly. He let out a sharp hiss and grabbed his right shoulder, his face contorting with what appeared to be genuine, intense pain.
June, walking directly behind him with the heavy lockbox, stepped forward immediately.
“Crawford? What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice tight with concern.
Crawford offered her a strained smile and rolled his shoulder slightly, wincing. “It is the old gunshot wound from Boston. The damp weather last night must have aggravated the nerve damage. It is flaring up badly p>
He raised his right hand, displaying the thick white gauze wrapped around his palm.
“Between the shoulder and this,” Crawford said, his voice laced with carefully calibrated frustration, “the nerve damage is causing sudden muscle spasms in my right hand. I can’t trust my fine motor control in this traffic p>
It was a flawless fabrication. His shoulder was perfectly fine, and he could drive a tank left-handed without breaking a sweat. But he needed her in that driver’s seat. He needed to create a pocket of intimacy with no easy exits.
June thought immediately of the dark warehouse in Boston — the deafening crack of gunfire, the sight of Crawford bleeding to protect her. A heavy wave of guilt moved through her chest.
𝘞𝘦𝘦k𝗅𝘆 𝗋еlе𝘢ѕe𝘀 𝗼𝘯
She didn’t hesitate. She reached out and took the silver key fob from his uninjured hand.
“Get in the passenger seat,” June said, her tone shifting into something firm and protective. “I will drive p>
A microscopic, triumphant smirk crossed Crawford’s lips before he suppressed it entirely. He nodded gratefully and folded himself into the low passenger seat.
June walked around the hood, settled into the driver’s seat, placed the lockbox carefully in the back, and pressed the ignition. The Aston Martin’s V12 engine roared to life — a deep, resonant growl that vibrated through the entire chassis.
She pulled smoothly away from the curb and merged into the dense, slow-moving traffic of Fifth Avenue.
The cabin of the Aston Martin was small and intimate. The air inside was saturated with Crawford’s cedarwood and bergamot cologne. He shifted in his seat and leaned slightly over the center console, his broad shoulder brushing against hers, reaching out with his left hand to adjust the passenger-side mirror.
“Just a little to the left,” Crawford murmured, his voice low and close to her ear.
June felt a sudden, sharp heat where his shoulder had grazed hers. She gripped the leather steering wheel tighter and kept her eyes fixed on the brake lights of the taxi ahead. She tolerated the proximity for one reason only — she believed he was physically compromised.
Exactly two car lengths behind them, a massive black bulletproof Maybach crawled through the gridlock.
Cole sat in the back seat in dead silence, a silk handkerchief pressed lightly against the grotesquely swollen, purpled flesh around his left eye. A thick cross-border acquisition contract lay open across his lap, its pages unread.