“He wouldn’t cooperate,” Brian stumbles, and I’d give anything to see the look on his face.
The sound of heels clicking against the ground in my direction registers in my ears, and I steady my breath, not wanting to give away my alertness.
“She’s going to blow a fucking gasket when she sees this.” I recognize the lilt to her tone just as Mr. Jameson gives her away.
“Miss Livingston, I think she should’ve planned for Mr. Jefferson not to align with her plans.”
Fucking Brittany. I should’ve gutted that bitch on our date. It’s not like we weren’t at the perfect location.
“Does he at least have the chip?” she asks.
“Yes. Scott inserted it into his arm an hour ago,” Brian replies dutifully.
Kiss ass.
“Perfect. Give him another dose of the medication to ensure he doesn’t wake up on the drive back. If we fuck this up, she won’t be happy,” Brittany instructs.
I hear them moving to grab what I assume is the needle as the door opens and closes.
“Fucking bitches, always telling me what to do. I’m not an idiot,” Brian mutters to himself. “If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t have known they were caught. I told them about you,” he says, slamming something down next to me. “I ran your precious
Rubi off the road,” he unwittingly admits.
I’m going going to set this fucker on fire from the inside out.
“I told them when Meagan squealed at the diner. I told them when Vivian tried to sabotage their plan constantly in and out of Sebastian’s office. Who do you think helped orchestrate the bathroom incident- me,” he snarls, banging his hands against the table. “They’ll learn to respect me, or I’ll fuck them all over.”
I listen to see if it’s just us in the room, and when I’m met with silence, I try to spring into action, but my limbs don’t move.
Brian must notice my movements. “I wouldn’t try to move if I was you. They gave you the really good shit. You’ll be out of it for a while before you’ll even be able to talk,” he smirks. “Can’t have you spilling any pertinent information before everything is in place.”
I glare at him, but my face doesn’t move.
This must be what Sam feels like.
“See, you can’t even lift your brows-it’s like Botox on speed,” he jests, but I don’t find him funny. I want to find him dead at my feet.
Brian picks up the syringe and flicks the side. “Before you go nighty night, I feel I’ve earned the right to be the first to tell you. The chip in your arm will blow the fuck up if all of you don’t do exactly what you’re told.”
He begins to press the needle into my neck before continuing, “And don’t think your little tech guy can help you with this shit. It’s cutting edge, and only Scott, the one who inserted it, and one other person have the key to deactivate it,” he smiles as he pushes the drugs into my system.
I don’t feel when or if he finishes giving me the full dose before my eyes close. My only solace at this moment is that I’m finally going home, and I get to see my angel.
LIAM
I
‘m not sure there’s a word to describe the rage boiling in my veins right now. My girl-gone. My brother-captured, and there’s a Benedict Arnold at every fucking corner.
“Fucking Jameson,” Rowan shouts, throwing his empty glass against the wall, shattering it into pieces.
We all saw red when Antonio confessed Mr. Jameson’s connection to the Senator. No one expected that. Sure, he’s a stern fucker in Calc. class, but there was never any indication he could be a traitor. Words I feel like we’ve been saying far too often lately.
My fingers fly across the keyboard as I type out a message to Coop and Colt. I need them to do more digging. Working to find everything about the Senator is the only thing keeping me sane. The minute I let my brain process everything, I know I’ll flip my shit.
“We need to bring him in. Now,” August demands, his anger palpable. I can feel it without looking up.
Sebastian shakes his head, “We can’t do shit until Karl’s back. We don’t know who’s pulling all the strings.”
“It has to be the Senator. Everything’s pointing to him,” Rowan interjects.
I pull up what I’ve found on the screen, and they all go silent, allowing me the opportunity to speak. “Senator Baker is definitely involved, and we know for a fact he’s using Sam to worm his way in,” I say, showing them the pictures of Baker and Samantha together. “Based on these pictures, she’s met him multiple times in the weeks since Karl’s kidnapping.”
“Why are we only seeing this now?” August snaps. “I thought we had eyes on both of them?”
“My guess,” I pause, bringing up another photo, “is now that they have Karl, there’s no need to hide their connection. The Senator thinks he has us exactly where he wants us.”
“How the fuck did we miss this?” Sebastian asks. “And how long have they been working together?”
“Since our dear Samantha turned fifteen. It appears that the Senator has a thing for high school girls-well, at least one high school girl, anyway,” I explain. Once I found out they were meeting, Colt and I started digging into the Senator’s past, and there’s been no evidence of him so much as sniffing around another underage girl before and during his time with Sam.
Sebastian’s blond brows shoot toward his hairline. “Are you saying they’re fucking?”
Rowan snorts, “That’s exactly what he’s saying. I don’t know why that would be the most shocking revelation of everything we’ve discovered. How many bored rich girls do we know that sleep with older and sometimes married men? It’s like a right of passage.”
“And how many of those same men prey on them for sport,” August adds. Both of them make excellent points. Younger girls that lie about their age to bag an older, wealthy tycoon, and older men who seek out naive girls to groom into their perfect playthings.
“It’s not the sleeping together that surprises me-it’s that we never heard anything, not a hint nor a whisper,” Sebastian replies, and I nod in agreement. The fact that not even an inkling that this was going on is more suspicious than their copulatory sessions.
Rowan’s face lights with excitement, momentarily ceasing his pacing. “Doesn’t this mean she’s no longer eligible to be our wife? Were they still sleeping together after she was Selected?”
“I wish it were that easy, but even if we could prove they were, which we can’t, with them having Karl, just about everything outlined in the contracts is moot,” Sebastian surmises, making Rowan bare his teeth.
“This is such fucking bullshit. I don’t see how the fuck anyone gets to have us by our balls,” Rowan mutters. Then, they begin to argue over the semantics of the clusterfuck we’re in.
While they continue to belabor the point, I quickly see if Emma’s chip signal is back on. I know we’re not supposed to look for her, but how can I not at least try and see if she’s safe? I haven’t slept a night without seeing the heartbreak on her face after Rowan essentially told her she wasn’t worthy of us. Those words were worth the punch August gave him.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.