Stomach burning, I hit the road again, resisting the primal need to head straight for Cam in Whitness, and instead pointed the car towards Bristol. The miles disappeared as I wove the SUV through the traffic. I was rigid with tension, my jaw set as I prepared for the fight of my life, but still, my mind wandered. Unbidden, I thought of Cam the last time I’d seen him, stretched out beside me, asleep and at peace, sweat cooling on his heated skin.
I could smell him. God, I could almost feel him inside me, fucking me while Saint had filled my mouth and held me like I was made of glass. The contrast between them had bewitched me. I needed Cam’s roughness like I needed to breathe, but Saint’s gentle touch had felt so good. I craved that now, his sharp-edged sweetness. I craved the comfort I’d found in him.
That we’d found in each other.
He loves Cam as much as I do.
More, maybe. He’d lived it for longer.
The thought calmed me as I neared Bristol and leaving the motorway forced me to slow down, but the respite was brief. Saint was in as much danger as Cam, and it hit me like a death curse that even if Cam didn’t die, there was every chance Saint would give his life to save him.
No.Nausea left me dizzy. The car lurched sideways and my blood roared in my ears, deafening me as I pictured Saint, white and cold on a mortuary slab, the earthy light gone from his forest-green gaze.
No. I couldn’t let it happen.
Cam wouldn’t survive losing Saint.
Neither would I.
* * *
Somehow, I made it to my flat. I threw the car underground and strode inside without Horacio noticing that I was an unexploded bomb.
The leverage I’d taken from the Sambinis was exactly where I’d left it the night Cam and his brothers had rescued the trafficked girls.
I crouched in front of Gianni, the eldest son of the man pulling the strings of an organisation that had been a thorn in Cam’s side for years. Thanks to the IV I’d inserted into his arm before I’d left him, he was mostly whole, and I sensed a sharpness in him that would work in my favour—an alertness to reality that was untainted by ego and status. “You have one job,” I told him. “If you want to live, you will tell whoever asks you the truth about what you saw the night I took you. Do you understand?”
The Sambini prince nodded, belying the fact that I’d ungagged his mouth, giving weight to my assessment that he was not as stupid as the men he’d been caught with.
Men who had not lived.
We reached an understanding. I smuggled Sambini out of the building through the service corridors and steered him into the boot of my car.
I called Saint as I emerged above ground. It didn’t connect on a conventional line or a data call, and as I sped towards Devon, I lost signal too, as if the mast had been blown from the ground, taking all means of communication with it.
Landlines severed. Wi-Fi equipment disabled.Dread cooled my simmering blood, spreading icy tendrils through my veins, stilling my pounding heart. The hired gun was close, I could feel it, and he’d already begun the process of isolating the Kings from the outside world, leaving them unable to call for help.
My right foot compressed of its own accord, pushing my powerful car faster and faster on the tight country roads.
I reached the coast and the scent of the ocean filtered through the air vents, making me yearn for the sport bike that would carry me faster to Cam and Saint. In the distance, I saw the shadows of the cliffs beneath the haunting light of the half moon. The silvery gleam spoke to me, though what it said, there was no time to dissect.
Moments later, it was shattered. An explosion rocked the earth and ethereal silver became a fiery ball of orange.
I veered off-road, cutting through a narrow lane that would take me to Whitness quicker. The rough ground shook the car from side to side, battering Sambini in the boot, but I didn’t care. I was numb from the inside out, my only reason for breathing to close the distance between me and the men who’d taken my soul and turned it from black to full colour.
The mess in the sky darkened to a thick cloud of smoke. I tracked it as Whitness drew near.It’s not the compound, but it’s close.And I knew why: to distract the authorities while something more heinous occurred elsewhere.
Sirens wailed in the distance. I emerged onto the main road as fire engines swept past, and I headed in the opposite direction.
The compound was two minutes away.
I ditched my car at the rear boundary and, for the first time ever, left the cameras rolling as I picked the fence apart and slipped inside.
Quiet greeted me, an eerie silence that was as terrifying as it was necessary for me to think.Where the hell are they?
Not just Cam, but anyone?
They evacuated.It seemed plausible, but Cam washere. I couldn’t say how I knew, but I did.
