“The woods,” Hook repeats.
He doesn’t kill Silas. Not yet. He just looks at the man’s hand on the desk, then looks at me.
“Peter,” Hook says, his voice light, almost conversational. “Do you think Wendy would prefer him with or without the fingers? I’m trying to be thoughtful.”
“I don’t give a fuck about his fingers,” I snap, my voice breaking. “I want to go. Now.”
Hook sighs, a sound of genuine disappointment. He turns back to Silas and, with a flick of his wrist that is so fast I almost miss it, he drags the hook across the desk. Silas’s scream is cut short as Hook slams the man’s head into the mahogany, knocking him cold.
“Fine,” Hook says, wiping the blood onto Silas’s expensive silk shirt. “We go to the woods. But Peter?”
He pauses at the door, the neon light from the hallway hitting the scars on his face.
“Don’t expect a rescue. Expect a funeral. Because if she’s at that estate, the man who bought her isn’t looking for a wife. He’s looking for a sacrifice.”
Peter
The rain hasn’t stopped. If anything, it’s turned into a deluge, a violent downpour that feels like the sky is trying to scrub the filth of this city into the gutters.
I don’t walk back to the SUV; I storm. Every step is a jolt of fire through my stapled ribs, but I don’t give a fuck. I reach the passenger side and slam my fist into the roof. Thud. The metal groans, a dull, hollow sound that isn’t nearly loud enough to drown out the screaming in my head.
“Woods!” I roar, spinning around to face Hook as he walks calmly behind me, wiping a smudge of Silas’s blood off his cheek with a silk handkerchief. “The woods? He’s taking her to the fucking forest? To a goddamn altar?”
I don’t wait for him to answer. I kick the tire, the impact rattling my teeth. My vision is blurring, the neon lights of the club bleeding into long, jagged streaks ofpink and red. I can’t breathe. Every time I inhale, I taste the copper of the lobby and the rot of the people inside.
“I’m going to kill him,” I whisper, my voice shaking so hard it sounds like someone else’s. “I’m going to find Viktor and I’m going to peel the fucking skin from his bones while he’s still conscious. I’m going to make him watch as I unmake everything he’s ever built. I’ll start with his fingers. Then his eyes. I want him to feel every second of the terror he put into her.”
I turn and launch myself at the SUV again, slamming my elbows into the window. I want the glass to shatter. I want to feel it cut me. I want the physical pain to silence the deranged images in my head—Wendy in a white dress, Wendy in chains, Wendy being touched by a man who bought her like a piece of fucking furniture.
“Stop it, Peter.”
Hook’s voice is a bucket of ice water. He’s standing by the driver’s door, his key fob clicking. The headlights flash, illuminating the rain between us. He looks at me with a bored, detached expression that makes my blood boil.
“Stop it?” I scream, lunging toward him across the hood. “Stop it? He’s taking her to an estate in the middle of nowhere! We need to find Viktor! Viktor is the one who did this! He’s the head of the snake! I need to go back in there and make Silas talk about Viktor’s safe houses!”
“Silas told us what he knew,” Hook says, his voice flat and clinical. He climbs into the driver’s seat, leaving the door open. “Viktor is a broker, Peter. He’s already moved the asset. You can skin him all you want, but it won’t puther back in your arms tonight. The estate is the finish line. That’s where the buyer is.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the buyer! I want Viktor’s head on a spike!” I slam my hands onto the hood, leaning in until I’m staring at him through the windshield. “He took her! He put her in that cage! I need to find him!”
Hook looks up at me, his arctic-blue eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp flick of annoyance. He reaches out, grabs the door handle, and slams it shut, but not before barking out a final word.
“Get in the fucking car, Peter. You’re having a tantrum like a child who lost his favourite toy. It’s pathetic.”
I rip the passenger door open and dive in, the leather soaking up the rain from my clothes. I turn to him, my chest heaving, my hands curled into white-knuckled fists. “A toy? You think this is a game to me? You think I’m just ‘having a meltdown’?”
Hook floors it. The SUV surges forward, the G-force slamming me back into the seat. He doesn’t look at me. He just grips the wheel with his good hand, his hook resting motionless on his thigh.
“I think you’re weak,” Hook says, his voice silken in venom. “I think you’re letting your rage blind you to the logistics. Viktor is a shadow. We could spend weeks hunting him through the city’s cracks. Meanwhile, the man in the woods is currently putting his hands on what belongs to you. If you’d rather hunt a broker than save your girl, then get out of my car and go back to the club.”
I choke back a sob of pure, unadulterated fury. He’sright, and I fucking hate him for it. I want to hit him. I want to grab that surgical steel hook and rip it off his arm.
“I’m going to kill them both,” I growl, staring out the window at the dark trees starting to blur past as we leave the city limits. “The broker. The buyer. Everyone who stood in the room while she was auctioned. I’m going to burn that estate until there’s nothing left but ash.”
“Good,” Hook murmurs, the speedometer hitting a hundred. “Hold onto that. But keep the theatrics to yourself. I don’t have the patience for a little girl meltdown while I’m trying to drive.”
I sink into the seat, the darkness of the forest closing in around the car. The rain is quieter here, muffled by the canopy of trees. It feels like we’re driving into the mouth of a beast. I look at my hands—the knuckles are split and bleeding from hitting the car. I lick the blood off. It tastes like iron. It tastes like the promise I’m making to the man at the end of this road.
I’m coming, Wendy. And God help anyone standing between us.
