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I wait for him to add something, but he doesn’t.
“And?”
His jaw feathers and he sucks his teeth. My biggest fucking pet peeve.
“Shortly after I was apprehended, they started hunting Melly out like sharks to blood. She went to her mother. Though . . . her mother never turned her in, did she?”
“She was sent to the warehouse. I already know this.”
I move to hang up for the second time, but again, he stops me in a rush.
“But who helped her out of there?” When I don’t answer, he continues. “Ask yourself this,” he starts, dropping his voice so low, I can barely hear him. “Would I have sacrificed myself, my career, my fortune, to save your mother? Your sisters?”
No. The answer is no.
“I think you’ll find Laura is a lot closer to Cortez than she lets on. Same with her lap dog.”
“Five minutes,” the guard barks, looking directly at me.
So the Cartel is working for the governor. I’ve known that. Michael, too. All for the prize of Hannah.
“You’ve not told me anything useful.”
“No one trusts the government, Carpenter.”
“They double-crossed her. How?”
“Melissa was addicted to the black dahlia. I couldn’t stop her, of course . . . I wasn’t able to stop myself, either.”
“If you’re trying to justify years worth of crimes against humanity with a drug you created, this conversation is finished.”
“No. Only, explaining. Six years ago when they first approached me about the black dahlia, I thought they were insane. But . . . when it came into fruition and we started sampling it, we found it could take you to new heights. Sexual, astral, that profound thinking that only comes from a real, good high. We used it countless times at our events without any issues. You want to know who owns it?”
I cock a brow and wait for his answer.
“Cortez.”
“And you think . . . Cortez has Melissa.”
His eyes glint wickedly.
“I know it.”
“Time’s up, Parker.”
Parker stiffens when the guard's hand lands on him, trying to mask the wince of pain.
“Get her out of there. Hannah, too, and leave.”
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Turning a blind eye to the deaths of dozens to save Hannah sounds heroic and all, but Hannah’s not that kind of person.
She’d turn herself in if it meant saving those people and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
One thing I’ve grown to loathe in my adult life is my vivid imagination.
If she turns herself into the cartel to save her sister, I know exactly what will follow.
Parker is hauled from his chair and escorted toward the exit and with the deafening slam that follows, those visions of what they would do to Hannah—to my fucking girl—plague my mind.
