Page 90 of The Ashes of Summer

I smile back at him. Cold. Mean. "Untie me and find out how big."

It lands. I watch his weight shift half a step back before he catches himself.

Good.

Beside me, Carter hasn't said a word since Groves started screaming, and that's when I realize what he's actually doing. His wrists are flexing—small, patient movements, testing, working. And on one of them, catching the low light, is that watch.

That stupid fucking watch.

Three years ago some officer-safety instructor spent an afternoon telling us we were all one bad traffic stop from ending up bound in the back of a van, then laid a table of escape tools out and started taking orders. Cutters in belt buckles. Blades in bootlaces. Watch straps that go through rope and tape and zip ties.

I called it gimmick shit. Carter bought one of each anyway, and told me I'd thank him one day.

Three years I've mocked him for that watch.

Something that isn't quite hope moves through my chest.

"You good?" I mutter, not looking at him.

"Been better."

"Because Summer is somewhere above me in this house, and every second I sit in this chair is a second she spends with him.” The thought tears through me so hard I nearly rip my own wrists open fighting the straps again.

The steel door creaks open and every muscle in my body locks.

Jackson Moore walks in smiling.

And I clock the damage before he's taken two steps. Blood soaking the shoulder of his shirt, running down over his chest, still wet. The right side of his head is a mess—there's a piece of his ear gone, torn away, the edge of it ragged. And when he turns his head to say something to one of his men, I see the bruising: dark bands wrapped right around his throat, the unmistakable shape of something pulled tight.

That's my girl.

She got her hands on him. She got her teeth on him. Some savage thing in me sits up at the sight of it, and for one second the pride is so big it crowds out everything else.

It doesn't touch the rage. It just gives it somewhere to stand.

Then his eyes find mine.

"Well, well, well." He strolls further in, unhurried, like he owns the oxygen in the room. Right now maybe he does. "I thought you'd have got here sooner, Sheriff."

I don't give him the reaction he's waiting for. "Where is she?"

He ignores it completely. "You know, I expected more from you."

Groves throws himself against his restraints again. "YOU TOUCH HER AND I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD⁠—"

"Oh, I touched her."

The room goes dead silent. Every drop of blood in my body turns to acid.

Jackson smiles slowly. Deliberately. Letting it sit.

"She tastes incredible, Sheriff. No wonder you wanted to keep her all to yourself."

Something in me snaps clean through. I throw myself against the straps so hard the chair legs scrape across the concrete. "YOU SON OF A BITCH⁠—"

He laughs. Actually laughs.

"And the noises she makes." His eyes lock onto mine and hold them. "Christ. She's the ultimate aphrodisiac."