Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96206 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“If Mr. Scott is a problem, I will dispatch him quickly.” Victor shot her a speculative glance. “Unless you can think of some other way to keep him at bay? As you pointed out, it would be better for my focus. I know it would be better for his health.”
A chill shot through Laila. How could she prevent Trees from doing what he would inevitably do and rescuing her?
“Another reason you should leave me here, so no one is wise to our plan. I can continue to extract more information from him you can use to your benefit and—”
“You coming with me is a nonnegotiable term. It is the only way I can hold you accountable if your information is, shall we say, ineffectual. If you refuse, I will set this house on fire with you inside, turn all my attention to killing your sister while holding your nephew hostage. After I’ve dispatched with Mr. Scott, of course.”
With her thoughts racing and her panic climbing, Laila tried to think of a way around Victor’s demand. But there wasn’t one. As much as she wanted to cry about that, it would do her no good. She would rather protect Trees than herself. “You understand that if I come with you, I will not be able to overhear any more valuable information.”
It was a last-ditch effort. She prayed it would succeed.
Once again, the world was against her.
“You are resourceful, Laila. Much smarter than your sister. If I need more information, you will find a way—spreading your legs again for Mr. Scott, perhaps—to procure it. But for now, you will come with me.”
Laila held back the insane and detrimental urge to sob. She would probably never see Trees again, much less have the chance to tell him she had feelings for him, too. Maybe that was for the best.
She swallowed everything back but her determination. “All right. I will go with you.”
The two hours since the alarm had alerted Trees that someone had infiltrated his property had been among the worst of his life. He’d tried a hundred times to call Laila. Nothing. And he had no idea what the fuck was going on. The intruder had shot out every surveillance camera inside the house. So all Trees knew? An asshole wearing a ski mask had shattered his living room window, then climbed in through the gaping hole. Twenty minutes later, he’d walked out with Laila at his side—no struggle, no gun, no coercion necessary. She’d merely climbed into the passenger’s seat of the bastard’s black truck with its hidden plates. Then the vehicle had screeched away, taking Laila—and his heart—with it.
Who the fuck had abducted her? How had he coerced her compliance? What was she enduring now?
The intruder had to be someone she knew. Trees was convinced of that.
Since she’d tried to escape two nights ago for a clandestine meet-up with Hunter Edgington to help save the man’s sister, as well as her own, Trees would have suspected his boss. But all of the douche buckets he worked for, Hunter included, had been thirty thousand feet in the air with him when Laila had been taken.
So whoever had her captive wasn’t a friendly, which made the fact that she’d left without being forced even more baffling. Worse, he suspected it was someone from either Geraldo Montilla’s or Victor Ramos’s orbit.
One thing he knew for sure? Laila would never comply merely to ensure her own safety. But for Valeria’s? For Jorge’s? They were her weakness. Whoever had taken her probably knew it.
Fuck.
“Anything, buddy?” Zy burst in through the back door, stopping short in the portal, staring at the shards of glass everywhere.
Trees didn’t understand the destruction. Had Laila fought in the kitchen but given up by the time she’d been dragged to the front door? “Nothing. I’ve looked all over the house for clues to understand what happened and who took her.”
Laila hadn’t taken a single one of her possessions. Not her clothes or her phone. Not even a nightlight. But two SIGs were missing off his wall in his underground panic room, along with a box of ammo. That scared the shit out of him.
“Are you sure Laila walked out of her own free will?”
“It fucking looks that way.” Trees tried to stifle both his alarm and impatience and tossed Zy his phone, screen open to the feed from the front porch camera. “Here. Watch. This is all I’ve got.”
As Zy did, Trees paced to Laila’s room. He couldn’t watch the video again, not without wanting to tear something apart and kill a motherfucker.
Inside her room, he found far fewer signs of struggle. In fact, her bed wasn’t even rumpled. The only hint he had that she’d been here? The towel wadded up in the bathroom sink, as if she’d dumped it there in a hurry. The middle was still damp.