Page 101

And now Whitney’s old bully was being held at the estate?

What the fuck.

A message came through Cade’s phone, and I read it over his shoulder.

It’s done.

I exhaled, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Alright. He’s gone to Marion. Tom is still there, though, but that’s…I mean, look at him.” Brooks turned his laptop around to show us a still image of Tom.

Both his arms were fucked up, one in a cast and one in a sling, and his face was marred with scabs.

A twisted satisfaction curled through me. I was going to smash him to pieces when I saw him again. Grind him into dust and sprinkle it on pig food. He deserved nothing less.

Thorne wouldn’t have anything left to bury when I was through with him. But then again, he wouldn’t have the chance to bury his son. He was a dead man walking, and the clock was ticking.

Brooks rubbed his forehead. “I think we have to go back to Plan A, before Whitney joined us. Blow it the fuck up. That door to the bunker can only be opened with Thorne or Tom’s biometrics, so…” I could tell Brooks was feeling overwhelmed with everything, and possibly having a moment of severe doubt, so I squeezed his shoulder.

“If we’re going to do this, it’s gotta be now,” he said, resolute.

“Alright. Let’s head to the estate now.” I couldn’t wait any longer. It would take us an hour to get there, and every second was crucial. “Hey, Frank, you got more explosives lyin’ around, right?”

Frank, who’d apparently finished his torture session and was now leaning against the wall and quietly smoking a cigarette, grinned at us. “Fuck yeah, I do.”

TWENTY-NINE

My eyelids were unbearably heavy, but the sensation of bouncing and jostling was enough to pull me from the sludge I’d been drowning in. The sound of an engine revving had me blinking my eyes open.

Everything was fuzzy, just dark shapes.

My mouth was drier than ever, and just when I was about to smack my lips together, a voice I didn’t recognize broke through the quiet.

“Hey. Peter. I got her. I’m on my way to yours.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, blinking them open, repeating this over and over again, trying to make the blurry objects in front of me take shape.

Wait.

Peter?

Peter Thorne?

“ETA twenty minutes. Pulling onto the road now. Oh. You’re in Marion?” Pause. “No trouble. They weren’t home.”

I was fairly certain I was lying on my side in the back of a car. And if I had to bet, this was the guy who’d kidnapped me. Where the fuck was he taking me?

“They were gone? Well, fuck. Maybe they went to the Sainted’s compound.”

My chest tightened when I thought about Court coming home and finding me gone again. Fuck, I was gonna kill this bastard just for making Court worry.

Maybe I should’ve been afraid, but it wasn’t fear that enveloped me. It was a violent rage that I’d been drugged and dragged off somewhere, that some piece of filth had decided I was a pawn in his game. How fucking dare he?

How dare he take me from my man, who’d only just gotten over me trying to run away? I’d been healing that wound for a week straight, and he’d just ripped it open all over again.

I lay still as I let my gaze wander around the car. The rearview mirror was positioned so that I couldn’t see the man’s face, just his shoulder. Which meant he couldn’t see my face or the fact that I was awake, not unless I moved.

My hands were bound in front of me, which was good. My ankles were bound, too. Both with zip ties. The car had some really shitty cloth upholstery that had torn in more than a few places, and I could tell by the rattling sound it made that it was an older model. There was even a cassette player on the dashboard.