“Does Rory know you’re close to Taube?”
“The relationship is a new development. The friendship isn’t,” was his wooden reply, but I sensed my actions perplexed him.
If she’d pulled this stunt in front of anyone else, she’d have given me no choice but to retaliate. Chad, on the other hand, I trusted. Implicitly. Only fuck knew why when he was friendly with the Irish and boinked our unfriendly neighborhood assassin as a hobby, but there you had it.
With Dante’s stench polluting my nostrils, I hoped my instincts were right about Chad.
“Whydidn’tyou go to Cancún?”
“Because I thought she was dead and I spiraled so I got shit-faced instead of…” Shame crossed his expression. “Doesn’t matter.”
I pursed my lips. “You let her go now then you might not get her back.”
“You’re trying to help when she’s gone out of her way to make things hard for you?”
“Kitty should know what I’m capable of.”
At those ominous words, Chad cleared his throat. “You sure, boss?”
“Go.” I flicked a hand at nothing. “You’re no use to me if your head’s not in it.”
“I won’t forget this.”
I flicked the alarm on my car and got behind the wheel myself. “Be sure you don’t.”
As I watched him follow the psycho formerly known as Dead To Me, I hit Kitty’s number on my cell.
No answer.
Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead on the steering wheel.
“Miedda.”
TWENTY-ONE
KITTY
“…haven’t they been pumping you full of my own drugs to keep you going? I’m thinking of leaving you here. Letting you rot and die at the same time.”
When I’d hit connect on the number, I hadn’t expected to be greeted with Stan’s voice.
Stan’s voice using Stan’s words to torture someone—Dante was the likeliest suspect.
“Do you know what happens to a body when it’s dumped in a lye bath?”
I flinched.
He’d asked me if I wanted to be there when he tortured Dante. I’d said no. I’d thought he’d respected my decision?—
“See, Kitty told me what you were about to do to her, Dante. I’m tempted to make you choke on your dick and let you bleed out from the stump, but I need answers.”
Confirmation—thiswasDante.
But as dumb as it made me, I couldn’t end the call. It was all on me. My thumb hovered over that red button. A quarter inch away from tapping on it and being an outright coward as I hid from what Stan was capable of.
“We found that little house in Philly. The one where your mom and sisters live. How fortunate that we have some openings in our stables.”
My stomach churned. Stables? What the hell did horses have to do with anything?
