Page 94 of Untamed Sinner

I lower the phone.

Well. Clara Whitlock is about to be kidnapped by Gabriel Reyes. God, I hope she has a sense of humor.

Going back inside, I send him the information we gathered on Clara before either of us can regain our common sense.

Then I pick up the donut. “I hope you don’t say ‘told you so’ if this all goes to hell.”

I take a bite before it can reply.

Yet I can’t help but think a floor beneath me, Hendricks is still in the vault, building contingencies for every possible way Monday can go wrong—and he doesn’t realize I’ve just created one he hasn’t thought of.

I make a face. I should probably tell him.

I stand.

Then I sit back down. Maybe after dinner.

The donut stares at me, glazed and judgmental.

“Shut up.” I take another bite.

66

COLE

Blood tastes like pennies.

Funny—you never notice the taste until someone gives you a reason to.

I roll another mouthful across my tongue before spitting it onto Gabriel Reyes’ polished concrete floor. It lands a few inches from his fancy fucking shoes.

He doesn’t even look down.

Disappointing. I’ve been trying to annoy him for the better part of an hour. Nothing. The man has all the emotional range of a church pew.

He stands in front of me with his sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand resting in his pocket like this is a business meeting instead of an interrogation. Immaculate. Unhurried, like he has all the time in the world and I’m just today’s entertainment.

I know better. My friend Gabriel wants something—and it’s something important if he’s spending this much time working me over, trying to weaken me so I give him whatever it is.

All I have to do is keep bleeding until he shows me where it hurts.

Just when I think he’s going to start going at me again, he says, "Clara Whitlock.”

So that’s where the bruise is. He figured out who the girl in the notebook is. I smile slowly through split lips. "Who?"

His fist connects with my face.

My head snaps sideways. Pain explodes across my cheekbone, bright and clean and almost refreshing.

I spit blood onto the concrete. "That's no way to ask a question."

Gabriel pulls my head up by my hair. "Clara. Whitlock."

I work my jaw. "You seem tense, Gabriel. If you need to get laid, I can suggest a girl or two you’d like. You can get aggressive with them too. They won’t mind."

His hand closes around my throat, not enough to choke me but enough to remind me that he could. "Clara Whitlock is the girl in the notebook."

"So you found her." I study his expression and catch the faintest flare of his nostrils. No—he didn’t find her. Someone else did. And there’s only one person tangled in this who’d send Gabriel Reyes down here to ask questions.