It was the same thing I had been feeling all week.
Maybe that’s why we were kindred spirits. I just needed to figure out what he was desperate for—to escape the life he was trapped in, or to prove himself and solidify his place in it.
Neither truly guaranteed that I’d get out of this alive.
He growled under his breath as I stood just outside of the truck and crossed my arms.
“What are you doing? Get in the truck,” Jude hissed through gritted teeth as his hand did that flex-thing that he had been doing for the majority of the trip. “Don’t make me chase you down again.”
Not gonna lie, it was pretty fun pissing him off. Maybe I’d run just because he hated it so much.
“I want to talk to Joel,” I stated as I hung on to the edge of the door.
“No.”
I shrugged like it was of no concern to me. “Suit yourself. Time to get your cardio in.”
Jude growled under his breath as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “It’s not safe.”
I cocked my hip. “You were about to call your goon to see if he had him yet. If he’s alive, then there shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Cole is not agoon,” Jude deadpanned.
I arched an eyebrow. “See now, you could have started with his name like a normal human being.”
Jude pinched the bridge of his nose. “Get. In. The fucking. Truck.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Or what?”
I wanted him to say it. To say that if I didn’t cooperate, he’d kill me himself. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking. Or maybe the exhaustion. But knowing that he really was a bad guy would make things a lot simpler.
But was he a bad guy?
A bad guy wouldn’t have gotten me pretzels and a Coke. Or maybe Stockholm syndrome was part of his master plan . . .
“Or we’ll lose the cover of darkness,” Jude huffed.
Oh. That was . . . reasonable.
“Where are we going?”
Jude’s jaw clenched.
“Cardio or cooperation. Your choice.”
Jude groaned. “If I promise to tell you most of what you want to know, will you just get in the goddamn truck?”
What he said about not making promises he couldn’t keep floated through my mind. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“You’re going to let me talk to Joel,” I said, still lingering outside the truck.
“I can’t guarantee he’ll be . . . awake.”
“Why?” I snapped.
“For the same reason you weren’t awake for a while. The purpose of extraction isn’t just getting the subject out. It’s making the people coming after them believe that something happened other than whatreallyhappened. It’s?—”
