Lochlan takes an angry step toward Quinn. Everything about this version of Lochlan is entirely unfamiliar. This isn’t the same guy who helped me face my fears about meeting my daughter. This isn’t the same man who kept us both safe as we ran from multiple dangers.
I don’t want to believe that this person can be a monster like the rest of them.
Then he slams the butt of the rifle into Quinn’s face, and I know the person I thought he was is gone. Blood sprays the glass as Quinn falls to the ground, coughing and choking. Lochlan kicks him in the ribs several times. “Family secrets aren’t yours to share!” he shouts at him. “Next time she’ll pay the price of your loose lips!”
I swear I hear pounding on the wall next to me, but I can’t pry my eyes away from the horror happening in front of me. Lochlan rears his leg back again.
“No! Don’t hurt him anymore! He gets it! He understands!” I scream, pleading with the man I thought was a friend. Quinn might be a stranger, but I refuse just to sit here and watch him get beaten. “Please. Please stop.” My voice cracks in tune with my heart.
Lochlan straightens up and looks over at me. “I wish things were different,” his voice is soft, almost apologetically so.
“Why?” I sob out. “Why did you betray us?”
Lochlan looks toward the door and takes a heavy breath. “Because that’s just how things are. I’m sorry, I can’t explain more.” He heads to the exit without a glance back at us.
“Wait!” I shout. “Did you hurt them?”
He looks back and cocks an eyebrow at me. “Who?”
I shuffle up my side of the wall, trying to get closer to him. “Lee, Skye, Rebecca, Teagan, Lexi,” I say their names in a rush. I swear he flinches when I say that last name. “Are they dead?” I whisper.
Lochlan gives me a stony look. How can this man feel nothing for us after everything we’ve survived together?. “Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer.” He leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.
The glass wall lifts the moment the door shuts. I rush over to Quinn, helping him to his knees. With the beating he just took, I know there’s a good chance his ribs are broken, or at the very least, painfully bruised. I take a look at his bloodied face and try to wipe it up as much as I can with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. His nose might be broken, too, but at least he’s alive and breathing. I’m counting that as a win for the time being.
The speaker on the wall next to us erupts with Pierce’s voice. “Hello, my darling. I do hope my friend Lochlan didn’t give you too much of a fright. My youngest brother is a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to learning to keep his mouth shut.”
Brother? Is Pierce the one who attacked me? No, he called Skye his niece in the note he left for me. Is there another one of them here?
Quinn sits up straighter and groans. “Fuck off, Atlas.”
“See what I mean?” Pierce says, his voice laced with unrestrained anger. “I’ve given my brother the world, yet he does nothing but spite me. But no more free handouts, dear brother.”
The door Lochlan exited opens again, and two of Pierce’s servants walk in. They are pulling two people tied in heavy, thick ropes behind them.
Quinn and I both gasp.
It’s Rebecca and Lee.
Both of them are wide-eyed as they return our stares. Duct tape covers their mouths, and their hands are tied.
Pierce laughs over the speaker. “Now, for your next task. One of them has to die. You have two minutes to decide who. If you don’t choose, you all die. Aren’t games fun!”
Quinn takes a sharp intake of breath, forcing me to look over at him. His eyes are lined with fear, matching my own.
How are we supposed to choose which of our loved ones gets to live—and which one has to die?
“Tick, tock,” Pierce mockingly teases. “Tick, tock.”
Teagan:
Welcome to Live, Laugh, Murder! I’m here with co-hosts Lexi Casburn and Capri Kim. We’re back with another heated debate. So you know how in most thriller novels, there’s usually a hot stranger who comes out of the woodwork? Either to assist the FMC or to betray them, right?
Capri:
We want to know, if you were in a thriller novel, would you trust the steamy, muscled-up stranger?
Lexi:
