“Thank you,” I said.
“There are two more captives here. I’ll tell them they are being freed in exchange for their silence.”
“What about the others who work here?”
“There are only two of them. I’ll give them a chance to leave now that nobody’s left to pay them.”
“And if they refuse?”
“You know the answer.” He leaned down, his face leveled with mine. “Can you get whoever flies that helicopter to get you and the rest to safety?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Once we get everyone out of here, I’ll blow this place up—I know where the bombs are. But first, I need you to swear to me that you’ll never say a word about this to anyone. Let it die, Jonah.”
I glanced at Mr. White, trying to convince myself that ending him would have to be enough of a payback for what had beendone to so many innocent men, though nothing would ever be enough.
“I promise,” I said. “I’ll let it die.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“Is there too much sugar in your tea?” Hayden asked as he walked toward me from his car.
I was sitting on my porch, my healing leg itching inside the cast. “My tea has the right amount of sugar, thank you.”
He walked up the stairs, still looking thinner than usual. Behind him, the sun was setting, painting the sky in streaks of orange and red. He leaned down for a kiss, then sat beside me, a folder tucked under his arm. “How’s the leg?”
“It itches, but it doesn’t hurt.” During my stay at the hospital, the tracker had been surgically removed, accompanied by a flood of questions I refused to answer until they finally stopped asking. I’d likely have a limp for the rest of my life, and, as someone had recently told me, my running days were behind me.
“At least it looks nice,” Hayden said.
I glanced down at my cast, covered in cat drawings. “It’s grotesque. How’s Tammy?”
“She’ll be out of the hospital by the end of the week, unless they kick her out sooner. There are only so many times she can get caught smoking in the bathroom.”
I snickered and finished my tea. “Stubbornness runs in your family.”
“True.” He glanced at me. “How are you with the news?”
The news.“I don’t know.”
“You’re allowed to mourn.”
“Am I?” I’d wished him dead for years, and now I couldn’t shake an unwanted sense of loss, which left me frustrated.
Hayden held my hand. “Do you think he did it?”
“Took his own life? Yes, I think so.” I remembered the hollow look in his eyes after his brother’s death. I hated Eliot, but a part of me never stopped loving him, and that part was mourning, remembering the joy he’d brought into my life before taking it all away.
“Did you talk to Nick?” Hayden asked.
“Yes. He’s doing better. His parents are sending him to Italy to rest.”
“Well, that sounds…”
“Rich?”
He nodded. “That’s the word.”
