“She’s convenient, and I made them fuck already, so hopefully—” He breaks off when she rolls his eyes.
“It doesn’t happen that quickly, you dumb fuck. Seems a bit risky to me. Let’s get rid of her. I’ll fuck him and have the baby,” she offers, leering at Jaxon like a dirty fucking cougar bitch. When I see Peter’s mouth twist in anger, I angle my body in front of Jaxon in case he decides to pull his gun out again.
“No, we do it my way. Hurry up and get in here. Don’t make me get my gun back out.” Jaxon and I shuffle up the steps and into the small cabin. Peter shoves past us when we stop in the rustic living area. He pushes back a rug and lifts a panel in the middle of the floor. “In here,” he orders, and I grimace when I see a set of steps leading to what I assume is the root cellar.
“I really need to pee,” I tell him, but he shrugs.
“There's a toilet down there.” I hold my hands out to him, and he fishes into his pocket for the key.
“What are you doing?” Patricia asks him a little shrilly.
“They can’t get out from down there. They can have their hands back. Besides, Harlow is going to make sure she’s knocked up otherwise I will have no use for her,” he threatens, and I quickly agree.
“Of course, but I want my cut. You promised me.” I flutter my eyelashes in the hope that I can provoke Patricia with a little jealousy, but when I glance in her direction, she’s not even paying attention. She’s flicking through the little black book, and when I see her mouth drop open, followed by a scowl, I know we’re in trouble.
“It’s missing the last few pages. They’ve been ripped out! The combinations for the rest of the safes are missing. Julia said they would be written in here. Where the fuck is Julia, anyway?”
“I got rid of the bitch and her useless daughters too. She fucked up. There was only one body recovered by the police. Dragos could still be alive.”
“Fuck!” She hurls the little black book through the room. “This is all useless without those codes. Where the fuck could they be?”
Peter yanks my hands to him, unlocks my and Jaxon’s cuffs, then pushes us down the steps. Neither Jaxon nor I have eaten or had anything to drink for thirty-six hours now. Add the cocaine to that, and the both of us are really in no condition to fight back. So we stumble down the stairs, helping each other, and I'm just glad neither of us trips or falls. A broken neck is not going to help anything.
The cellar lid drops down, plunging us into darkness, but I had seen the cord to a light hanging as we came down. My hand brushes against it, so I give it a pull. The cellar lights up just as Peter and Patricia start a screaming match to rival anything my mother had with one of her johns.
ChapterEighteen
Kai
My hands grip the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles are white as I push the car faster than the prescribed speed limit. Jake is in front with lights flashing and siren wailing as we fly toward our place. My eyes keep swinging back and forth to the clock, watching the minutes tick by agonizingly slowly. So much has happened that it feels like it should be the middle of the day, but the clock only reads 7:15 as we get closer to our destination.Only another ten minutes.
Thomas and Jake are going straight to our new place while the rest of us head to Dad’s to update everyone.
Hopefully, Thomas has phoned ahead and warned the security team about a possible intruder. If we’re right about their next step being a search for the book, they could be at our place or heading to Dad’s. Depending on whether or not they trust each other, they might even split up and try to hit both places at once. There are just so many variables.
The silence in the car is excruciating. We’re all lost in our own thoughts, and right now one of Oli’s stupid comments would be most welcome. It would at least break the rigid atmosphere. I’m sure my brothers have the same toxic thoughts running through their minds that I have running through mine.How could we let this happen? What could we have done to prevent it?But really there are no answers that could make us happy.
We took every precaution, and it was our unfortunate luck that they found a way to wiggle in. I know Thomas will be flogging himself for not escorting them to the boat. But then we’d be missing another family member as well. And who knows if they would have left him alive. They probably wouldn't have taken any chances, so he would be a corpse on the side of the road. No, it’s much better that he’s here and able to be involved in the rescue.
Finally, I pull into our street and turn into Dad’s driveway. The silence in the car is even more obvious now that the engine noise has gone. I can’t stand it.
“Shit, will someone say something? Anything, I just can’t stand the silence anymore.” I turn in my seat so I can see Declan and the other two in the back.
“Sorry, I’ve been trying to work out everything in my head. There's so much to keep straight,” Oli apologizes, and I feel some of the tension leave my body now that we’re all talking again.
“Yeah, I was doing the same, but maybe we should have been talking it out amongst ourselves,” Holden adds in, sighing loudly. “It’s like something out of those soap operas that Mrs. H loves so much.”
Declan is still quiet. I give him a nudge and he jumps, blinking as he looks at me in surprise.
“Hey, man, what’s going through your mind? You were miles away.”
“I was just thinking about Cecelia and what happened to her. I’m praying that the same thing won’t happen to Harlow. Peter and Julia have a use for Jaxon, but Harlow is sort of dead weight. What if they’ve kept her to sell to their sex trafficking ring?”
My blood just about freezes in my veins. Fuck, I didn’t think about that.
“We need to find them!” I slam my fist against the steering wheel before wrenching the car door open and heading inside, knowing that everyone is following me. The others all jump to their feet when we enter, and they throw questions at us all at once.
“Quiet!” I shout, unable to handle the noise. “Let us tell you what’s happened, then you can ask any questions.”
