I check once more to ensure the coast’s clear before rummaging in my pocket for the syringes of propofol I stole off that dead merc earlier today. While she’s peering through the tinted windows of the vehicle, I jab the first needle into the side of her neck and press the plunger.
She yelps and slaps at the spot, whipping around to stare at me with wide eyes. “You…”
Mid-sentence, her body sags, and her eyes roll back in her head. I load her unconscious body into the back seat, shut the door, and speed away, toward that safe house in the desert.
Chapter 12
Trinity
The scent of expensive leather hits me as I wake, which does nothing to help the headache pounding between my ears. The rumble of pavement under my skull peels my eyes open.
The plush back seat of a luxury SUV greets me. My face is smushed against the leather, my body curled and half-reclined in an unnatural position. The soft, warm orange of evening crawling toward sunset streams through the windshield.
How the hell did I end up in the back of a vehicle?
The fog covering my mind dissipates with agonizing slowness. As if extracting a memory from the depths of my mind by a thin, fraying thread, I drag the last thing I remember into my consciousness.
The Cypress Hotel. I found Kellin, but Brody found me first. We kissed and then hid in a closet. A sharp prick on my neck?—
Holy shit. That bastard drugged me.
Still groggy, I lift my thousand-pound head high enough to peer out the window. The empty rocks of the California desert fly past us.
We’re definitely not in Los Angeles anymore, Toto.
In the front seat, Brody sits in pensive silence behind the wheel. He must hear me shift positions because he meets my gaze in the rearview mirror.
Seething, I hold his dark hazel eyes for a few long moments before the road claims his attention again.
This absolute assclown.
I’ve been unconscious for who knows how long, tossed in the back of a BMW like a piece of luggage, while he gallivants us across the desert.
I flick my hands over my body, checking for anything out of place, any indication that he touched me. My tank top is still on, my underwear, my jeans zipped and buttoned?—
Brody snorts.
My eyes snap back to the rearview mirror to find the dick smirking at me.
“Relax.” Honeyed amusement drips from his tone. “You’ve made it clear I’m a bastard, but consent matters to me.”
Well, that’s a relief, but the asshat still drugged me.
Rage flushes under my collar as I sit up and grab his headrest. “Where do you get off drugging me?”
He responds with an infuriating one-shoulder shrug. “Precautions. Didn’t want you running off again.”
“Screw you.” I kick the back of his seat and flop against the leather, furious with the lack of apology.
Sandpaper scrapes the back of my throat, and my eyes burn with unshed tears.
I can’t believe I wasthatclose to salvation, to my family and freedom.
If only I had screamed. Kellin would have run to the closet and found us.
What did I do instead? Stood motionless in the dark, with Brody’s hands on my body and his cock pressed against my ass.
Giving myself over to my kidnapper. What is this, Stockholm syndrome?
