Call it a premonition, or just my weird luck, but I’d skipped the spare bedroom to my left.
Before I walked all the way down the hall to Allie’s room, I decided to check it out.
The door squeaked as I opened it.
Usually, Allie kept this room empty.I’d have used it for storage, but my tight-ass sister did things the normal way and either shoved her shit in the attic, or down in the basement depending on whether she wanted to chance it getting wet or not.And while the middle bedroom was all done up as a guest bedroom, this one was simply empty.
Except it wasn’t.
Perkins was tied to a chair that was smack dab in the middle of the room.
The shock of it froze me in place.
Then I started noticing things.
Her wide eyes and the struggles as she tried to get my attention.
But that wasn’t what made my fingers tingle.
Nope.It was the blood.
I don’t know why, but I noticed the little trail of drips on the carpet first.My vision narrowed in on them, making them fifty times larger than they really were.That trail led to the legs of the chair.Then to her pants.There was a scuff mark on the knee that was almost invisible because she’d worn a dark, utilitarian canvas.But her white shirt had more red stains on it.Courtesy of that head wound which was still bleedi?—
I woke up in the same predicament as Bridget.Tied to a chair and placed just out of arm’s reach of her.Of course, since both my arms were bound to my torso and the chair back, I couldn’t reach if I wanted to.
Johnny Porciello paced the room.
It was such a small bedroom that it took him four steps.Then he’d turn and take four more steps, turn, and?—
“You’re awake, fucking finally.”
I wiggled my fingers.They were tingling because he’d zip-tied them together too tightly, not because I was going to pass out again.Of course, all bets were off if I turned my head toward Bridget.Which I didn’t because…
What was I going to do?No one except Allie knew I was here.I didn’t even have a car outside to tip someone off that I was in the vicinity.“What the fuck do you want, Johnny?”
“Seventy grand.”
I blinked.“It was fifty.”
“Yeah?It was fifty before half of fucking Chicago’s underworld wanted to wax my ass.Did you know there’s a bounty on my head?”
“How much?”If Ringo was going to get paid, I wanted to know.
“A hundred grand!”
He said it like it was a lot of money.“That’s it?Who put the hit on you?I’ll pitch in another half mil just to see it done properly.”
“You bitch.”He swept a hand out and backhanded me.
My cheek stung.A trickle of warm liquid tickled my chin and dripped onto my shirt.
I made the mistake of looking down.
Funny, I felt detached rather than overwhelmed at the sight of my own blood.“That’s all you got?I’m bumping that up to a fucking million.”
While that would hurt my lifestyle a lot, getting rid of Johnny Porciello was worth it.
“Why aren’t you fainting?Were you faking it?”
