“I told you about the flashback with the gun,” I say. “She’s had another.”
I keep going, explaining Hailey’s plan and the long drive we took to shoot a fucking tree.
“That’s Rhett she saw. It fits. The memories came back in the wrong order but it fits. The blood’s first. He tortures people for hours and ends up looking like he’s bathed in it. Then, he shoots. One bullet straight between the eyes.That’swhat Hailey saw. A fucking execution.”
“It doesn’t fit, Carter,” Broadway drawls. “If she saw Rhett torturing someone, he wouldn’t have let her walk away.”
He’s right. Vaughn’s daughter or not, Hailey wouldn’t get out alive if Rhett had spotted her.
She’d be dead before she could saysorry.
“He didn’t see her.” I flick the cigarette onto the ground, watching the cherry burn out. “I don’t know how Hailey got there. I assume she followed Alex, but I’m certain Rhett has no idea she saw the execution.”
After the first flashback, she said she was running through mud, that she saw lights in the distance. Streetlights. Houses. The warehouse Rhett uses for his dirty work is an abandoned watch factory. It’s surrounded by nothing much. Patches of unused land, but there’s a neighborhood nearby.
“She ran away, remember?” I tell them. “I don’t know who was being executed, but that doesn’t matter right now. I need a safe house, Dante. I need to get her out. Rhett knows where she is. If he has Vaughn’s phone tapped and she mentions this, even in fucking passing, if Rhett realizes she saw him—”
“Carter,” Dante cuts in. “If you lift her out of there, you’ll be sending a very clear message.”
A message that I care deeply about Hailey Scarlett Vaughn. That I’ll do anything to keep her safe.
“The word will spread,” Dante continues. “Fast. People might even assume you have the evidence and you’re about to knock down their world.”
“Sheis the evidence,” I grit out. “She’sit. Maybe there’s a file somewhere, who the fuck knows? But Hailey’s an eyewitness. The first one Rhett’s ever overlooked. If he finds out, she’s dead. I have to get her out. I can’t protect her here. I can’t keep an eye on her twenty-four seven.”
“Plenty of people will think you and Rhett are in on this together,” Broadway says, weighing every word. “She’s a cop’s daughter, Boss. They’ll assume Rhett’s about to sell them out in exchange for a plea deal.”
“You’ll be painting a big, red X on his back,” Dante adds. “His, yours, and Hailey’s. You get her out of there and it’s a declaration of war.”
“Hailey’s mine, Dante. Mine to protect. If keeping her safe means war, then you better pick a fucking side.”
My heart pumps so fast that the blood whooshes in my ears. Silence falls heavily between the three of us but doesn’t last long.
“Broadway,” Dante says, his tone heavy. “Get Ryder to block Hailey’s phone. She calls Vaughn every evening, and we can’t risk her slipping up. No in or out calls until she’s at the safehouse. I want the three of you on the road within the hour.”
A small commotion in the background tells me Broadway’s rushing out. The muffled clap of closing doors confirms it a moment later.
“Use the safehouse you took Layla to two years ago, Carter. Get Hailey out and then tell her the truth. Time’s up.”
It is... I have twelve hours before Koby, Ryder, and Broadway arrive. The last twelve hours of Hailey’s obliviousness.
My last twelve hours of her fragile trust.
???
My emotions don’t subside as I pull suitcases from the top of my closet, then lever them open in the middle of the floor, and throw things in.
Rationally, I know Rhett’s in the dark. He has no idea Hailey’s a witness, that she saw him torturing some poor fucker. I know he won’t show up here out of the blue to put a bullet in her head. I know she’s as safe right now as she was this morning before I figured this out.
But the fear coursing through me, knowing she’s exposed, that the shit might hit the fan at any given second, pushes me to act.
It’s too fucking hot already with Noretto looking into Alex’s involvement with Rhett. If Rhett found out Vaughn hid her at Lakeside, anyone with an agenda can track her down.
Fucking Rhett and his careless business strategies.
I told him a warehouse in Columbus isnotthe place for executions, but he never listened. It was only a matter of time before someone stumbled upon one. Some have over the years. They’re all dead now. Rhett always has men strategically placed outside as lookouts...
He didn’t that night otherwise someone would’ve spotted Hailey peeking through the window or wherever.
