Page 147 of Captivated

Nothing more or less worse than what was in Joe’s. He had just been able to, for a time, put it aside while he handled this. Compartmentalize, if you will.

“Joe, listen,” he heard his father say as Damian re-entered the warehouse.

Cory’s voice filtered through the phone on speaker. “Ryan Thompson is one of the names that came up—we were going through other ones first, so we hadn’t gotten to that one yet.”

“Speed it up,” Lucian barked.

“Sorry, yeah, so Ryan Thompson bought a private estate in Vermont six months ago, but renovations just finished on it last month.”

“What do you mean, private?” Joe asked.

“I mean … deep in the woods, lots of land, and plenty of security. The records of that weren’t all too hard to pull, but if I had to chance a guess, Joe, that would be it. That’s where I would say he is. I’ve got the address coming through to Dad’s phone.”

“Makes sense,” Lucian muttered under his breath.

Joe turned back to the blubbering mess of a man in the chair. Trevor was still firmly tied down, half-dead, and he wasn’t fucking going anywhere. “If you gave me the wrong info, I will make it my personal mission to kill every single fucking person tied to your bloodline and name. Last chance to correct anything.”

“It’s him—it’s him, I swear!”

Good enough.

Joe yanked the knife from Trevor’s kneecap, and with one hard swipe of his arm, the blade cut through the man’s throat. Blood arched, and sprayed heavily. Trevor was dead in a few seconds, and his wide, glazed eyes stared up at the ceiling.

Just like that, Joe was done.

He dropped the knife, and turned on his heel to head for the door.

Calm.

Cold.

Ready.

He was done with this business, and ready to move on. Ready to finish the rest, and get Liliana back to the safety of her family, and him. He wasn’t going to stand there and fucking dwell like an idiot about the dead man in the chair, or what might be happening in Vermont. He needed to keep moving—to keep getting closer to her—or he was going to fucking explode.

“Jesus Christ,” someone—it sounded like Dante, but Joe couldn’t be sure—said. “Damian, you ought to be mighty fucking proud of that man. I can’t say any of us would be that collected in this situation.”

“We are,” his uncle, Theo, said.

“Very proud,” Damian added. “And far more. Let’s go get her, then.”

“Yes, now,” Lucian snarled.

Joe was already gone.

EIGHTEEN

LILIANA STARED AT the ceiling, and wondered what time it was. How many days had she been in this goddamn room now? She couldn’t be sure—the guard assigned to her door only opened it once a day to throw two bottles of water inside, and then he promptly closed and locked it up again.

He never said a word.

Never even looked at her.

She couldn’t tell how many days it had been by the rising or setting sun considering the windows in the bedroom were boarded up, too. She suspected it must have been at least two days, but probably three or more if she were going on the amount of times the guard had opened the door to give her water.

If that’s what they called throwing the bottles at her.

She’d fallen asleep twice.