The driver wasn’t hired from an outside company. He was part of the operation.
“She tried to kill Knox,” Gage said grimly. “He’s the reason all these lights and sirens are blocking the front doors. I’m taking her back to the house so we can figure out who sent her.”
My blood ran cold. They’d try to force my client’s name out of me. Would they go after Adrian, and shut him up permanently to cover their tracks?
“He’s lying!” I choked out. “Please help me!”
But the look of angry disgust on the driver’s plain features was its own answer.
“How bad did she mess him up?” he asked Gage. “He gonna be okay?”
“Bad,” Gage said. “And he’dbetterbe okay, or I’ll kill him myself.”
The driver’s face closed off, and he gave a tight nod. “Back to the house, then.” The glass rolled up, and the car pulled smoothly away from the chaos of the hotel parking lot.
I couldn’t afford to panic, even though sick terror was clawing at the inside of my chest. I had to keep my wits about me. Where were we going? I tore my attention away from the alpha holding a gun on me, trying to keep track of directions and street names as we left downtown and merged onto the highway.
God—they could be taking meanywhere. I never left my usual haunting grounds except when I had a job like this. If I needed to go somewhere, it was on my own two feet, or sometimes on the L, if I had money. I could only afford cabs when I had a client paying me. Once I left the tiny area of Chicago that I knew like the back of my hand, I might as well have been in Alaska.
There was nothing for it, except to try and remember, step by step, the route we were taking. But my head was muddled with fear and adrenaline, while the massive highway system seemed to merge and twist completely at random. I knew I’d missed acouple of exit signs, and at night, I couldn’t even tell if we were headed north, south, east, or west.
The trip felt like it took hours, but I was pretty sure that was just my growing panic distorting the passage of time. When we ended up on a dark road with trees looming on either side in the glare of the headlights, my terror finally overflowed in a choked sob.
Were they taking me to the pack’s house like Gage had said, or to someplace dark and remote where a body might not be found for weeks... or ever?
“Where are we?” I asked weakly.
“Almost there,” Gage said unhelpfully.
With a pang, it occurred to me that the only person likely to miss me would be Adrian. And let’s be real—he’d probably just assume that I’d taken his money and run. Or maybe there would be a news story about Matthew Knockley getting hauled away from the hotel in an ambulance, and he’d at least know I’d tried to do the job before I’d disappeared.
I was absolutely alone. I’d made a grand total of one real friend since I’d washed up in Chicago, and then I’d gone and left that friend alone in his apartment with a murdered corpse. No one was coming to save me, because literally no one on the planet even knew I needed saving.
The limo slowed and pulled onto a long, winding driveway surrounded by trees. I felt like Gretel, disappearing into the dark woods without Hansel at my side... not a single breadcrumb in sight to mark the way home.
The car came to a stop in front of a massive old house that looked like it had sat here for as long as the forest around it had. The glass rolled down again.
“Will you need the car again tonight?” asked the driver, giving me a wary look.
“No, not tonight,” Gage said. “I’ll let you know in the morning if there’s any word from the hospital.”
“Sure.” The man turned unfriendly eyes on me. “Watch yourself with that one, okay?”
“Yeah,” Gage agreed, and took me by the arm again.
Outside of the car, I cast a desperate look around, looking for a direction to run. But even if I managed to shake off the alpha’s iron grip, there was only the dark outline of trees all around us. I wouldn’t make it fifty yards without tripping and breaking an ankle in the impractical fuck-me heels I was wearing.
I was never going to leave this place alive, was I?
Swallowing hard, I tottered after my captor on the gravel driveway. The house was even bigger than I’d first thought—looming over us as I was dragged up the flagstone walkway to the massive front door.
Gage pocketed the gun and fumbled for a keyring, opening it. “Inside. I’ll take you upstairs to the attic room and get you some food.”
Great. So, apparently, I was going to be the crazy woman locked in the attic? A completely inappropriate urge to laugh burned up my throat like acid—proof that I was finally losing my shit completely.
“Right,” I said, my voice high and wavering. “Sure. The attic.”
He gave me an odd, sideways look. “It’s converted. Might be kinda dusty, though.”
