I could still get away.
The shrubs grew denser, but I forced my way through them. There had to be a road somewhere around here. Or even a village.
“You won’t get far, bitch!”Marku. He clearly didn’t trust his guards to capture me. He sounded close. Way too close for comfort.
Fear gave me the edge I needed to keep going, even though my legs trembled with fatigue and my lungs burned like they were on fire. Sweat poured down my back, soaking through the cotton hoodie. If I ever got out of this mess, I’d go to the gym more often. Take up running. Lift weights.
The sound of a large body crashing through the trees behind me turned my bowels to water. More yelling on my left.
God.
They were hunting me like an animal.
A deranged laugh echoed through the forest.
Then I caught the rumble of a vehicle ahead. Headlights flashed through the foliage. The trees thinned as a black SUV barreled at speed down a track, heading right for me.
I broke free of the trees and stumbled again, slipping on a patch of loose gravel and mud, unable to prevent myself from falling forward.
Lights blinded me. The SUV slammed its brakes on and skidded to avoid me, but it couldn’t stop in time.
This was it.
My end.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the impact.
52
Declan
10 minutes earlier
“Are we certain she’s here?” Ronan hunched over in the backseat, his tall frame rigid with tension as our SUV bumped over the pot-holed track.
“No, but Francesco is, and the fact he’s here, less than 20 miles from where Verity went missing, speaks volumes.”
“Why now? Why would he risk being picked up by the police? He’s stayed off the radar for weeks.”
“He must have struck a deal with the Romanian.” Milo had sent me a file for Avram Marku. When Kyril’s guys killed Konstantin and all his men, his half-brother had been 13 and not a part of the Marku criminal family.
Sadly, the influence of his mother wasn’t enough to keep him out of trouble. He’d grown up into a carbon-copy of his olderhalf-brother and was busy building a trafficking network that forced women into performing in fucked-up web-cam shows.
The guy needed taking out, and soon.
I should have done it at the club, but the fucker had nine fucking lives. And besides, getting Verity away had been my priority.
“It’s pure luck Milo found di Luca,” I said. A camera in a gas station had picked him up this morning on a back road. The only property out there was an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by forest. Property records say it was owned by a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands with links to one Avram Marku.
“Any idea what we’re facing?” Conal asked, the tension rolling off him. I glanced sideways.
“Does it matter?”
He shook his head. “No. I just want our girl back.” And there it was again. That phrase:our girl.
Forcing my guilt down, I focused on the track ahead. Verity might be their girl, but she could never be mine. I blamed myself for losing her today. I should have known her father was out here, lurking in the shadows like a motherfucking cockroach.
Seeing Marku at the club was a huge red flag, but instead of watching her like a hawk the moment we left the safety of the hotel, I’d taken my eye off the ball.
