Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117379 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Would he do it?
Of course he would do it—he was a fucking Devil’s Jack—but only if he was done using me.
Shit.
“Em, look at me,” he said. I glanced at his face to find cold, dead eyes studying me. The eyes of a sociopath.
How could I have been so fucking stupid?
“We’re calling your dad,” he said. “I’ll let you talk to him so you can give him this message. You’ll tell him that you’re with Hunter, the Devil’s Jack he met in Portland. Let him know that we have you and your friend Sophie. Then you’ll tell him that we’ll kill you if he doesn’t do exactly what we say. Got it?”
I nodded. I felt tears start to build in my eyes, but I’d be damned if I’d show him even a hint of weakness. I refused to blink as he pulled out my phone and scrolled through the contacts.
Liam reached up and tugged out my gag, then held the phone to my head. It rang twice.
“Hey, baby, what’s up?” I heard my dad ask.
“Daddy, I’m in some trouble,” I said quietly.
“Talk to me,” he replied, immediately all business.
“I’m here in Spokane with a Devil’s Jack named Hunter,” I said, focusing all my emotions into one horrible, hate-filled glare at Liam. Too bad I didn’t have lasers in my eyes. I was pretty sure I could’ve cut him in half with that look. “He said to tell you that he has me and Sophie. He’s going to kill us if you don’t do what he says. He’s also a giant fucking pussy, and I think when you catch him, you should let me cut out his balls with a dull spoon before shooting him in the head.”
Liam—Hunter? whoever the hell he was—grinned at me, then pulled away the phone as Dad started shouting. He tugged the gag back up and stuffed it into my mouth, then stepped toward the cliff’s edge, talking softly just out of earshot.
I wobbled, wondering if there was any point in trying to hop away.
Not really.
Hunter spoke for a moment longer, then turned off the phone and casually pitched it over the fence and into the falls.
He turned back and gave me an evil smile.
“Your daddy’s pretty fond of you, Em,” he said. “Things are going to work out just fine.”
Not for him, they wouldn’t.
The van drove forever, and I lost all sense of time as we jolted around in the back. Hunter and Skid—apparently that was the other asshole’s name—spoke quietly, making the occasional vague phone call in what had to be some sort of unholy Devil’s Jacks kidnapping code.
I couldn’t communicate with Sophie, but I did everything in my power to send her a message with my eyes. You’re not alone, our men will rescue us. I’m so damned sorry I brought this down on you. Something along those lines.
Not sure it sank in.
She was probably thinking about her little boy, Noah, and wondering if she’d ever see him again.
It was a good question. Wish I knew the answer.
The van finally stopped and they dragged us out. We were in front of a house, an older one. Two stories, big porch, and apparently in the middle of nowhere. There were sparse trees off in the distance and gentle hills that kept me from seeing any other houses.
Great.
Hunter carried me into the living room and set me down on the couch gently. Skid dropped Sophie down next to me, and she struggled to sit up.
“Here’s the situation,” Hunter said. “You’re here as leverage. One of the Reapers down in Portland—Toke—made a real bad call tonight. He went to our house and started shooting, no warning, no provocation.”
Fuck, I thought, eyes going wide. Toke was definitely a Reaper, but he’d been in the wind for the past week. I felt a burning pain in my side, where the wound he’d given me the weekend before was still healing. He’d cut me with a fucking knife in the middle of a party. Allegedly it was an accident, but Dad wasn’t amused. He’d taken off after him shooting.
Now Toke had found a new way to cause damage. Asshole.
“He took a hostage when he left. One of our brothers is down and a second is probably getting tortured to death right now, so you’ll have to excuse us for being a little abrupt about this whole thing. Your daddy”—he nodded at me—“is gonna do what it takes to get our guy back for us. That happens, you go home.”
I studied Liam, torn between hurt that he’d betrayed me and unspeakable rage toward Toke. I didn’t know the details of what had gone down between him and the club. Last weekend there’d been a big meeting, but I didn’t have anything to do with that. Not like I was privy to club business—that was a boys’ game. But I wasn’t stupid, either, and I’d been born a Reaper.