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“No gun,” I quickly tell him, and I can see how disappointed he is. But since shooting wasn’t on his list of skills, I think giving this tiny man a weapon of any kind would be a mistake.
“Then what am I doing?” Max asks.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I haven’t spent a lick of time with Max, but I’ve heard plenty of stories from Thea. Though Max is two years younger than her, he was always coming up with ideas, little schemes to make them some cash so they could pay the bills while their mother fucked off. It was his idea to begin with, kidnapping me with the hope of selling me to Cormac.
“You’re going to do what you do best,” I tell him, glancing at his face in the rearview mirror. “You’re going to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Three – Thea
I don’t know how much time passes, but it feels like an eternity—or maybe that’s just how it seems since I’m tied to a chair in an old, dusty bar all by myself. No matter how I wriggle my wrists, the rope is tight against them. The only thing I end up doing is give myself a rope burn with how much I try to free myself.
Cormac says if all goes well he won’t harm a hair on my head, but how can I trust him? I don’t know the guy. He could be a good liar. Maybe once he has Silus, he’ll have no use for me and put a bullet into my brain, too.
God, I don’t want to die here. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want Silus to die, either.
Muffled voices speak outside, and though I can’t see a thing due to the lack of windows in this place, I can hear the surprise in the voices of the men outside. I can’t make out what they’re saying; there’s a door between us and a good thirty feet.
Behind me, Cormac emerges. It sounds as though he’s on his phone: “Who?” He laughs. “Right. Sure, let him in. Let’s see what he has to say.”
I turn my head in time to watch Cormac end the call. He pulls out a gun from the waistband of his pants, and my heart skips a beat when that steel glints in the dim light. He reaches for the chair facing me, dragging it on the floor to position it behind me, and I only need another few seconds to figure out why.
So he can sit behind me and point his gun at me. Yay.
If Silus is going to walk through that door, I hope he has a better plan than turning himself over. I hope—
All thoughts leave my head when I hear someone step inside the bar, and when that person comes into view, it’s the last person I expect. The very last person. Like, literally, he should be locked up in a tiny room, miserable, with nothing but his imagination as his company.
“Max?” I can’t help but say my brother’s name.
Max doesn’t run to me, but he does note my tied-up stature as he approaches. His expression reads calm, but I know that’s just because he’s good at hiding it. How many times did he get so nervous about his plans he gave himself diarrhea the night before? He’s probably feeling worse than I am right now.
My brother shifts his gaze to the man with the gun behind me. “Cormac O’Connor, I assume?” He approaches us and offers his hand, as if he wants to shake Cormac’s. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”
“Max,” Cormac speaks slowly, “the same Max who claimed he had Silus McLean kidnapped and ready to sell to me. Hate to be the one to break it to you, but I don’t need your help anymore, kid, now scram.”
Dropping his extended hand, Max has a comeback ready, “Actually, you do still need my help. You see, I did have Silus ready for you, but he escaped, the wily bastard, so I came up with a different plan—a plan you interrupted.”
I have no idea where my brother is going with this, so I don’t say a word.
“Thea’s my sister,” Max goes on. “After Silus escaped, the only other plan either of us could come up with is if she pretended to… be with him. You know, get under his skin, make him need her and all that stuff. Get Silus to trust her, so that when the time came, we could bring him wherever you wanted.”
Cormac laughs behind me. “Well, looks like I cut out the middleman, then.”
Max cocks his head at the mafia boss behind me. “Did you? Or did you publicly kidnap the girl Silus has been seeing, give him a location, and hope he doesn’t come alone? Come on. Think about it, Cormac. You fucked up. He could bring every single one of his men here, whereas if we would’ve been left to our plan, we could’ve brought him to you with no questions asked and no extra men in the equation. Now, you’re either going to have a firefight on your hands or it might backfire spectacularly.”
I can tell Cormac is thinking about everything Max said based on the tone of his voice when he says, “You may be right. So how do you suggest I fix the situation, Max?”
“I think you need to let my sister go.”
The laugh that fills the air behind me after that tells me Max can talk a normal person out of the shirt on their back, but not a mafia boss. “I don’t think I’m going to do that, but I do appreciate your concern for your sister, so I’ll tell you what: you can stay here with her and make sure she gets out of this alive.”
Two minutes later Max is tied to a chair next to me, and under his breath I hear him say, “I think I’m getting rusty.”
Cormac is near the old bar talking to two of his men, which is the only reason I whisper, “How did you get out, anyway?”
“Your lover let me out,” Max whispers back. “He’s just down the street, wanted me to stall while everyone got in position. Did I mention how grossed out I am that you two are touching nasties?”
“If we get out of this, I’m going to kill you.”
