Page 71 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

So how the hell does he know it?

Pritchard tried touching Tess, but she twisted away. “All growed up and well over eighteen. I’m truly thinkin’ it’s a sign from God, us bein’ reunited. This time, I don’t even have to ask your stepdaddy’s permission.”

Eric’s mouth fell open as he looked at Dayne, whose face reflected the same shocked expression he knew was on his own. “What the fuck?” He paused the video as the enormity of Pritchard’s words hit him with the full-on force of a shotgun blast. “I asked her point blank, and she swore she didn’t know any of those men.”

“Keep going.” Dayne tipped his head to the laptop. “Maybe there’s an explanation.”

“Yeah, what?” With his teeth grinding, he clicked the play arrow.

“You’re right.” Tess thrust her chin in the air, but he could see her lower lip trembling. “You don’t need to ask his permission. You need to ask mine, and that’s not something I’ll give. Ever.”

One of the other men asked Pritchard a question, but Eric barely heard the words. All that kept repeating in his head was that Tess had lied to him.

What else is she lying about?

Pritchard grinned. “This little lady and I go way back. She was just a girl when I knew her back home. I’m sorry I missed those years. I do like ’em young.”

Eric balled his hand on the desk so tightly his knuckles whitened. Pritchard was a predator, no doubt. But Tess…well, fuck, she’d lied her pretty little ass off.

So much for an explanation.

As Pritchard continued, the shocking revelations kept worsening.

“Your stepdaddy made a promise to me, and I intend to take what’s mine.”

Some of Tess’s response was obliterated by a crack of thunder. “I’ll never be yours, and you’ll never lay a hand on me. Take the drums and let it go.”

For the next few minutes, they watched the men unload the drums from the back of the pickup and roll them into the barn, but it was Tess he could barely keep his eyes off. Rage pounded like a drum in his head, but it was nothing compared to the knife of betrayal she’d stuck straight through his pathetically gullible heart.

Tess knew damn well what this case meant to everyone, and to him personally. It was a chance to make things right. He’d poured out his story to her of that horrific day, and she’d stood there pretending to be sympathetic and caring.

His heart began to race then seemed to stop beating altogether.

Is she in league with them?

Regardless of her lies, the rational side of him didn’t believe it was possible. While he’d been assigned to Birmingham, he’d never seen her in any of Gant or Pritchard’s circles. Jesse had already told him she’d left Alabama at eighteen, which was ten years ago. Long before Gant blew up the ATF truck his friends had been in.

Jesse had also said their stepfather had “promised” her to his friend. Pritchard.

Pritchard hauled Tess against his chest. The sight of that pervert’s hands on her sickened him. When she screamed, “Let me go,” he wanted to slam his fist into Pritchard’s face. When the man trapped her in his arms, trying to kiss her, a snarl rose in Eric’s throat.

Not even the satisfying cry from Pritchard as she drove her knee into the man’s groin was enough to pierce the dark veil that had slowly but surely draped itself around Eric’s heart.

While she’d been lying her yoga-clad ass off, he’d foolishly begun to care for her and Jesse.

It was worse than that, because fuck it all to hell and back—he’d been falling for her. There it was. She might have been handing him a line of crap, but he couldn’t lie to himself any longer. Not about that.

“She could still have an explanation for not telling you she knew Pritchard,” Dayne suggested.

Eric slammed the cover of the laptop closed. He doubted there was anything she could say to excuse how she’d duped his ass. “If she lied about this, what else has she been lying about? If innocent people get hurt because she’s withheld anything critical, I’ll arrest her myself for obstruction.”

“You don’t seriously believe she’d do that, do you?”

“No. I don’t know. Not anymore, anyway.” He shoved his fingers through his hair. His gut told him Tess didn’t harbor a bad bone in her body, and neither did her brother. That didn’t change the fact that she’d been fucking with him this whole time—figuratively and literally, or that his chest ached from having his heart ripped out while it was still beating.

Dayne sat on the edge of the desk. “Who’s her stepdaddy? You don’t think—”

“Yeah,” he cut his friend off. The thought was so enraging he couldn’t verbalize it. “I do. I can’t be a hundred percent certain, but I sure as fuck intend to find out.”