“Don’t do this, Justin. Judge will kill you.” That’s my girl. She knows he should fear me, but she’s also letting me know she’s alive and pissed off.
“Too late. When everything is said and done, you’ll marry me. I need your inheritance to get out of debt with the Albanians.”
I should have known the spineless prick would be in bed with someone else. Fucking hell. But the Albanians wouldn’t want to hurt Evie; they’d sell her, or worse, put her in one of their brothels. I’ll fucking kill them, too.
She is mine.
“Nothing is going to save you. You shot a cop,” Evie sasses back at him. There’s a struggle over the line again.
“Let’s go, Evelise,” he orders. “You had no idea what I was capable of, but now you do.” Another struggle ensues, then someone gets hit. When I don’t hear Evie anymore, I know what the bastard did.
“Well, fuck, I promised, but you need to know now. Evie came to me this morning. She’s pregnant.”
My head whips to stare my cousin down.
“You kept that from me. I shouldn’t have let her leave the compound.”
“Judge, she is barely pregnant. You can’t lock her up for her whole pregnancy to protect her.”
“You want to make a fucking bet on that. I can do whatever the fuck I want. She and that baby are mine to protect.” I gesture at him, “When you get an ol’ lady, you’ll understand.”
“Never happening. Let’s get your woman back. I have an ultrasound at the office that we can use to check her and the baby over. That’s why I was here on the compound today instead of my clinic. I was ordering things in preparation for a baby.”
Before getting the truck into drive again to go around the state police, I hear, “She’s mine now, Judge. You’ll never get her back. I’ll rape her like I planned to do that night. Tear her up and beat the shit out of her. You failed. Oh yeah, I’m supposed to tell you, Kurti says hello.” The line goes dead as Justin laughs.
“Who the fuck is Kurti?” Lach asks.
“I don’t fucking know.”
We squeeze through the gate, and the cops don’t try to enter after we leave. Law is on his way back from his downtown office. I call him quickly, though.
“I’m on my way,” he answers.
“Justin has Evie. I think this was a diversion to keep me busy while he grabbed her. Or the officer. Who the fuck is Kurti?”
“Fuck! I can’t talk to you about it yet.”
“What?”
“I’m on my way to the gate to take care of the warrant. Get Evie back. I’m calling Cameron.”
“What does Evie’s father have to do with this?”
“I can’t explain right now; it’s attorney-client privilege.” He hangs up, and I throw my phone at the dashboard.
Moments later, we pull up to find the detective dead on the sidewalk. People are on their phones, so I know that the police are on their way. When we step through the door, Chump is coming to, while Rusty and Loco are still out cold.
“It was Justin,” Chump groans as he puts his hand to his forehead. Lach checks him over while I try to figure out what happened here.
Rusty starts waking up, groaning as he rolls over. “Fucker shot me with an animal tranq.” He pushes up to his feet, looks over at Chump, and I watch as something crosses his vision. “What the fuck was the interplay with you and the cop? Are you on the take?” Rusty moves toward Chump.
“Fuck me,” Loco snarls as he pushes himself up. “Did he use poodle shit on me?” Turning on Chump, he has him by the unpatched vest. “What the fuck, dude? Why did he only hit you and speak to you before he did it?”
“You are crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Must be the drugs.”
“No, the fuck it wasn’t. You were spared being shot because he knew you wouldn’t follow him.”
“None of that fucking matters,” I snap. “We’ll deal with it later. For now, we need to get Evie back.”
