“We’ll get to her in time,” Ramsay vowed.
If we didn’t … I didn’t think I’d survive losing her again.
50.Taran
To my relief, there was no one else parked at the lighthouse as we pulled up to it.
“Is it in there?” Pollock demanded, eyes narrowed with suspicion as he pointed at the abandoned keeper’s cottage.
“Nope. It’s that way.” I gestured to the lighthouse, trying to buy time.
“What the fuck do you mean it’s in there?”
“I mean my family owns the lighthouse, and I use it as storage.” The lie tripped easily off my tongue. A strange calm had come over me. Perhaps it was shock.
The surrealism of what was happening to me right now hadn’t quite sunk in.
“If you’re lying … och, get out of the fucking car.”
I did as he demanded and followed him around the vehicle. That’s when I noted it had a European plate, not a UK license plate. It was just a guess, but I was pretty sure if the police ran those plates, the car would be registered to some random person from mainland Europe.
He jerked the gun toward the lighthouse. “Lead the way.”
The problem was that I knew as soon as we reached the building, we would be greeted by a locked gate and a signthat readProperty of the Northern Lighthouse Board. No Trespassing.
I pretended to stumble on the peninsula, trying to slow us down.
But eventually we reached the gate.
Pollock immediately clocked the big padlock and the sign. He spun on me, his gun hand shaking as he pointed it in my face. “You fucking bitch!”
I laughed hollowly. “It’s amazing to me that I’m the bitch when you just shot a man in my living room and are holding me at gunpoint all to steal something that doesn’t belong to you.”
“The watch is mine. White owes me!” he spat.
“Except he doesn’t own the watch. I do. And I owe you shit.” I sneered hatefully at him.
“Do you want me to mess up that pretty face by putting a bullet in it?” He jabbed the gun at me. “Stop messing around and take me to the fucking storage facility, you cunt!”
Even as my knees shook with fear, I tipped my chin up in defiance. A kindle of brittle acceptance fought with my terror. “There’s something you should know about me … I really despise that word.”
“And I’ll really fucking shoot you if you don’t tell me where the watch is.”
“I know.” I shrugged, tears burning my nose. “But I can’t take you to the watch.” Because Laird had it at his house for safekeeping with a few of the smaller items I thought might get damaged in storage. And I couldn’t bring this piece of shit anywhere near my brother and his family. “So …” A sob rattled through my chest as I thought of Quinn and how this would devastate him. “This is it, I suppose.”
Pollock was in utter disbelief. “You’d fucking die over a watch?”
Let him believe that.
“I guess so.”
“Tell me where the fucking watch is!” He cracked the gun over my head, and a flash of light exploded behind my eyes as pain ricocheted across my skull. Then it flared up my knee and across my right hip and elbow. As my vision cleared, I realized I’d hit the ground with the impact to my head.
Something wet trickled down my temple.
Blood?
The gun barrel came into focus as stinging pain pulled on my scalp. It was Pollock gripping me by the hair as he shoved the gun in my face. “Take me to the watch, or I won’t just kill you with the gun.” His spittle flecked on my face. “I’ll fucking rape you with it and then I’ll blow that pretty head off.”
