Page 104 of Tempest’s Torment

I lean closer, there's something against the glass, a white piece of paper with four words written across it in thick black marker. Rogue zooms in and my blood turns cold.

COME GET HER, KAI.

Nobody speaks, fuck, nobody fucking breathes. He knows my name, not Tempest, but Kai.

The name I gave Lilah this morning, the name she called me in her bed. Which means this cunt has ears in this apartment.

I look at Ghost. “He knows."

Ghost's face hardens. "Yeah."

The smile that comes on my face can only be described as maniacal. "Then let's not keep the fucker waiting.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

lilah

The adrenaline is gone. I know because I can feel every individual point of contact between the rope and my wrists, every nerve ending in my shoulders from the angle they've been held at. When the adrenaline was running, I didn't feel any of it.

Now I feel all of it. I keep my breathing measured and I watch the room.

It's a farmhouse. Old, dusty, unkempt. It’s like it hasn't been properly lived in for years. I notice a kitchen through a doorway to my left, a front door I can see but not reach, two windows with curtains drawn, and a second door at the back that Marcus came and went through twice since we arrived.

Marcus. That’s his name, he’s the one that hurt Jinx.

He's standing near the front window now, phone in hand, pulling the curtain back at intervals to check the road. He’s monitoring things because Evan’s pacing. I watched Evan do the exact same for two days in Connecticut. He's waiting for something.

These two men have been in this room together for two hours, and I've had nothing to do but watch them, there’s something wrong about them. Not in a crazy way; I know they’re both fucking out of their minds, but it’s wrong in the way they are around each other. They know one another inside out.

"What was the sign for?" I ask, needing to break the silence.

Evan stops pacing, he looks at me and the corner of his mouth moves. "You saw it?"

"I was in the car."

"Then you know what it was for."

"Kai won't come alone."

He holds my gaze. "I'm counting on it."

Fear courses its way through me, making my blood run cold. He wants Kai here. He didn't just take me to hurt me; he took me to use me, to draw Kai in. I start pulling against the restraints again, testing the knot at my left wrist, working the rope against itself.

Evan watches. "Now you're scared."

"Of you? No."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm scared for him." I meet his eyes. "That's different."

Anger slides into his expression and his jaw tightens. I've said the wrong thing. Not wrong because he'll hurt me, wrong because once again someone else matters more than he does.

That's what breaks him; it always was.

"Lucy loved me," he says, moving to the other side of the room. "Before you." I look at the floor in front of me and say nothing. "She was happy until you started working on her."

"Lucy was afraid of you."