I yelp in pain as he digs his fingers harder into my flesh.
“Don’t make me ask twice!” His yell warms my face. The smell of cigarettes makes my skin crawl, but I don’t want to anger him more.
Tears slide down my face when I peer at the rough-looking man with graying blond hair beneath a stained baseball cap.
He tilts his head, examining me in silence. Terror pours through my limbs, unable to shake the grisly scenarios flashing through my mind. He takes a slow step back and flicks his faded army-style jacket back to plant his fists at his sides.
The motion exposes the unmistakable shape of a gun’s handle peeking above the waist of his pants.
His grin is terrifying. “You look just like your mother,” he says with a strange wistfulness. “Too bad she didn’t know what was best for her.”
Shock leaves me breathless. Does this man know my mother?
“My mom.” My voice quivers. “Where is she?”
“Better off cuz I can’t get my hands on her,” he says, displeased.
Shaking against my restraints is useless, the old chair scraping the floor, but I struggle until I’m out of breath.
My captor shakes his head. “Nice try, little fox. But that won’t get you anywhere.” He tuts patronizingly.
Years of hurt win against my fear of this man. “What do you know about my mom?!”
“The crackhead who told me about you said she’s dead,” he says, unaffected, scratching his stubble. “I’ll give it to her. She disappeared with your mom and kept her mouth shut for twenty-five years. But the woman’s so far gone now it only took some cash.” His laugh is grating, trickling ice down my spine. “In the end, I always get what I want.”
Nausea creeps back up my throat. As soon as I turned eighteen, I tried to find out who my parents were, but it was a closed adoption. She’s dead and I’ll never get to meet her. The flimsy shred of hope I was holding on to shrivels like burnt paper. What about my father? Looking into the brown eyes of the man before me, my mouth dries and it’s difficult to get the question out.
“Who…Who’re you?”
The man puffs out his chest with an unsettling smile, and I spot Mike behind him, arms folded, too comfortable with his surroundings.
“What the hell?” I pant. He knocked me unconscious this morning. “What is this? Untie me! Why would you do this?”
“Relax, sister, we only want to chat,” he chuckles.
The word lands like an atomic bomb in my chest. My mouth falls open, my mind frantically going through all the times I’ve spoken to him since he started dating Quinn. His questions about my childhood…I thought he wanted to be friendly.
“No,” I whisper hoarsely.
“Isn’t this a fun family reunion,daughter?” The older man says mockingly, confirming my fears. “We can all live happily ever after. Josh here could need some help with our operation,” this stranger who claims to be my father says in the casual drawl of a dinner table conversation.
“Josh? Even your name was fake?” I screech. “Oh, Quinn! I swear if you hurt her—”
The blond man raises his hand. “Your mother was fierce too, when she was young,” he snickers. “Your little friend is safe.”
Relief floods through me.
“We needed Josh to get closer to you since you slipped through our fingers that night at the pub,” he says with a disappointed tsk, tapping his chin. “Your knight in shining armor won’t be able to find you here.” His brown eyes are sharp as razors. “This compound’s been out of the feds’ reach for thirty years.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” I gulp, another tremor running through me.
Chapter Forty-Eight
CARTER
The cramped room at the station reeks of cheap coffee and heat coming off the people looking intently at the corkboard. The team Logan sent, together with my security chief Derrick and his rescue unit, are all sandwiched between a handful of the sheriff’s officers.
Sheriff Walker points to the satellite map pinned in the center. “This place is a maze. It’s an abandoned logging camp from the 1920s. We can’t go in guns blazing through the main gate. It’ll give them time to move her and gear up at the armory that’s in one of the new, reinforced buildings.” He taps along a row of dark gray rectangles.
