“He transferred from Texas? From the same town as Cordelia?” I demanded, double checking what he’d just said. What my gut was telling me was true.
Decker nodded, and I needed to take a calming breath.
Of course, it could have been a coincidence. But only fools and dreamers believed in coincidences, and I was neither. This fucker ... he fit. Not only had he been in the right place at the right time, he’d been on Riley’s protection detail today. Hehadbeen following us, and we’dknown. Worse yet, he was trained. Not in the ordinary police force kind of way, either. Delta wasn’t the only mega-power that wanted its future leaders to betrainedand there were actual camps dedicated to providing that service.
That was where we’d first met Johnson, before we started at Ducis. He’d been heir to his own family’s immense fortune—albeit new money—until his father’s secret love child showed up. The details were hazy, but our spies told us that she somehow orchestrated for Johnson to be legally disowned. Tossed out on his ass.
“Explains how he was getting past us,” Dylan commented softly, and I shook my head in disbelief. Johnson was good. Crazy good. And totally, certifiably insane, even before the shit with his dad.
“Where does he live?” I demanded of Decker. The captain quickly scribbled down an address on a scrap of paper and handed it over.
“This is the address we have for him,” he said, “but something tells me he won’t be somewhere so obvious.”
I wracked my brain for a beat, trying to remember anything I knew about him.
“He said he had grandparents in Jefferson, right?” I said to Dylan. “He mentioned it as soon as we told him where we’d come from.”
Dylan nodded, face serious. “Yes. I remember him saying that.”
“Find that address!” I said to Decker.
The captain nodded. “Will do. You head out, and I’ll send through the address and backup asap.”
He was already reaching for the radio on his desk, but Dylan stopped him by snatching the handset out of his hand and smashing it against the deck.
“No need,” Dylan snarled. “This is Delta business. Just get the address.”
I shoved my way out of the police station with a deathly scowl on my face, Johnson’s “address on file” clutched in my hand. We would start by checking it out, but something told me the grandparents’ place was our winner. Decker better find that property straight away.
Then Johnson was going to pay for every scrape on Riley, a thousand times over.
22
The steady pitter patter of my blood splashing against the concrete floor was the only sound keeping me awake. My head was fuzzy and thick from blood loss, but as far as I could, tell he was yet to hit anything debilitating. So long as I didn’t pass out from all the little cuts he’d made, then I should be fine to run. It was all surface wounds, and so far I’d escaped anything worse than some slimy kisses and rough boob grabbing.
Johnson had been gone for a while, long enough that I almost started to panic. Had he gotten bored and decided to leave me here until I was unconscious? Or was this the opportunity I’d been waiting for?
Biting the side of my cheek in an attempt to focus my thoughts, I raised my heavy head and tried to shake the stringy, blood crusted hair from my face. I must have taken a head injury in the crash because Johnson had been focusing his attacks on my body.
I took a few deep breaths then strained to hear.
Silence.
Surely this was as good an opportunity as I’d ever get. I’d been Johnsons prisoner for too long to just keep waiting for a rescue. It felt like I’d been in that dark room for days, but it was probably only a couple of hours. Still way too long for my liking.
Thankfully, my attacker had left the glaring spotlights off when he’d run out of here some time earlier, and my eyes had grown more accustomed to the dark. Enough that I could make out my shadowy surroundings.
As far as I could tell, I was in some kind of shed. He’d placed my chair in the dead center—well away from the equipment—and set up an industrial looking spotlight directly in front of me.
A grim smile crept across my pained and cracked lips, and I swallowed back a smug laugh. This prick had severely underestimated my desire to live, and my newfound spine of steel. One thing that being sucked into Delta’s world had taught me was that I was much stronger than I ever thought. If I could survive my parents’ death, being in a plane crash and being forced to shoot a man in the head ... then I could damn well get out of this mess.
Spotting my target, I sucked a deep breath in then held it for what I was about to do. Because it was gonna hurt.
As hard as I could, I threw my weight to the side of the chair, trying to tip it over.
Nothing happened.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath. My arms tied behind the chair back were preventing me from leaning far enough to topple the chair. I bit my cheek again, clearing the spinning fog from my brain before using every damn ounce of effort to lift my armsup. It wasn’t a particularly high backed chair, so it only took a moment of excruciating, tearing pain in my shoulder sockets before I managed to slip over the chair back.
