Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 135958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135958 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I didn’t like this feeling.
My father was powerful too, dangerous, and he’d never had a setup like this. He couldn’t have afforded it. He also didn’t have the need for it. I hated him, but he didn’t have the enemies the Bennett family did. Owning his trucking business wasn’t profitable enough to put him at the billionaire level. Not even close.
“Okay.” Tanner emerged from the bathroom, putting his phone away as he walked toward me. “We’re ready to go.”
I spied one of the men handing an envelope to the owner before picking up all the bags.
I had to admit, I was surprised they didn’t just go in, take what they wanted, and leave. The owner wouldn’t have done anything. No one went against the Bennett family, but he seemed happy as he skimmed through the envelope.
“Riley.”
Tanner waited for me outside the vehicle, one of the guards holding the door for me.
I hurried my pace, then cursed myself for doing that. I could walk the speed I wanted to walk. There was a slight breeze in the air. It was usually in the twenties in June around here, but I shivered. The temperature had dipped lower as the sunlight began to wane.
SHIT!
I’d forgotten to look at the time inside.
I’d been so consumed with thinking of escape routes, then watching how the guards were operating, that I completely forgot. But, thinking back, I had taken a step toward the counter, and two guards had moved to intercept me.
They’d planned for that.
It wouldn’t have made a difference.
There had been no clock in the gas station, or I know I would’ve noticed it.
My throat started burning.
They really were prepared for me.
“How many girls do you kidnap?” I yelled to Tanner.
He glanced to me before rounding the back of the SUV. I could see him through the windows.
I snorted as a guard opened the door for me. “Is it a regular thing? Monthly? Bimonthly? Every week? Every few days?”
I didn’t expect a response as I got inside, but I was expecting Tanner to get in with me. I was going to keep taunting—another small point of resistance, the only thing I had going for me at this point.
But he didn’t get in.
His door closed abruptly, and so did mine. My leg had barely cleared the door before it slammed shut, then locked.
I looked around in alarm. I was the only one in the SUV, but they’d locked me in.
“Hey!” I banged on the window. My voice was probably muffled, but they could hear me. Or so I assumed. “Hey!”
No one looked.
Tanner had disappeared from his side.
A complete wall of guards came around my SUV, blocking everything except the little I could see through the gaps between their necks and heads. I moved around, trying to get a better look at what was going on.
I could see Tanner walking toward an empty section of the parking lot. Four guards trailed him, but stood a respectable distance back.
Something was coming.
Someone was coming.
And we didn’t have to wait long.
Three SUVs sped down the highway and turned into the parking lot, parking in front of Tanner with a swirl of dust.
I half expected all the doors to open and guards to emerge, since those looked like the same SUVs as we were traveling with. But they didn’t. The only door that opened was the back door of the second SUV.
Kai Bennett had arrived.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I hissed to myself as my blood boiled and froze all at once.
He’d only become more since I last saw him.
Taller. More good looking. More riveting. More dangerous. More, more, more. And I hated it. That had become more too.
I loathed him now.
There was no comparison between Kai and Tanner. Tanner had been the womanizer, the flirt back then, and besides the smirking asshole he was for kidnapping me, there were plenty of hints that he was still those things now.
But as I looked at the brothers standing across from each other, power dripped from Kai Bennett. Authority emanated from him, even just standing there.
Every single guard stood an inch taller.
The tension in the air went up a notch, and I felt it even inside the vehicle. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps ran down my arms.
Sunglasses blocked his eyes as he listened to what Tanner was saying, but his eyes flashed in my memory—how dead they’d looked when he told me to leave Brooke alone, right after their father had told her Cord was dead.
I felt sick to my stomach, and my hand moved there, as if to keep the contents in.
No one else made my skin crawl with disgust except my father. Kai Bennett and Bruce Bello were cut from the same cloth.
I should have looked away, if only just to keep from emptying my stomach, but I couldn’t.