“Not bad for a guy who hates romance,” Mark says, dangling his car keys. “What’s wrong, Chris? Not going to tell me this isn’t what it looks like?”
Fuck.
“No,” I tell him, straightening my shoulders. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”
His eyes grow wide. “Wow. You could at least lie to me, pal.”
“Never have, never will,” I say.
Our eyes are locked in a heated stare.
“This changes things,” he says.
I nod. “I know.”
This air grows thick with tension as Mark steps inside the room. With just a bed separating us, he pulls out his phone.
“We’ll deal with this later,” he says as he plays his voicemail on loudspeaker. “You apparently know my daughter better than I do. Is this a prank?”
“You have one new message,” the monotone voice says, but I stop breathing when I hear Harper shout, “Chris Collins won’t just show up to a trap alone! He’s an ex-soldier, so he’ll know you all have weapons and?-“
Harper gasps and then I hear a man’s voice snarl, “Sneaky fucking bitch! Why did no one check her?”
Then…silence.
Every muscle in my body tenses as I stare at his phone.
“That’s no prank,” I tell him, my pulse galloping like horses in my ears. “What number did she call on?”
“Yours,” he says. “From your burner phone. So I can’t track where she is. I got an earlier flight to surprise you both, but I wasn’t expecting…this.”
He glances down at the bed and shakes his head in disgust.
Where have I heard that guy’s voice before?
And when it hits me, I clench my fists.
“The prick whose head I smashed in at Alice’s grave,” I hiss.
“What?” Mark gasps. “What the hell were you doing at my wife’s grave? And why didn’t you tell me? What the hell else don’t I know about?”
“We can talk about this later,” I snap. “Right now, we need to get to Harper.”
I pull my phone from my pocket to find two new messages and sixteen missed calls from Mark.
“Fuck!” I hiss, hating myself for switching it on silent.
Then I click open a text and my eyes grow wide with more rage than I’ve ever felt.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asks as I stare down at Harper.
With a blade pressed to her neck, she’s tied to a chair and Bryan Stanfield is licking her ear.
Clicking open the second message, I stare down at the location coordinates sent from Harper’s phone.
“I know where they are,” I mumble.
Grabbing my car keys and pulling out my gun, I storm to the door.
“Hurry up,” I tell Mark. “Someone’s going to fucking die tonight!”
THIRTY-ONE
Harper
“He’s here,” the guy on crutches says.
“Excellent,” Bryan beams, grinning at me as he slides the knife up my thigh. “Looks like you get to watch your sugar daddy die tonight, Harps.”
“Fuck you!” I hiss.
Bryan laughs as he stands and drags his chair away.
“Chris!” I yell as the bald guy pushes him through the metal door.
His hands are raised, and he doesn’t take his eyes off me.
“Is he clean?” Bryan asks as they bundle Chris to the middle of the warehouse.
“Yeah,” the bald guy says, lifting a pistol.
Bryan walks up to Chris and swings a firm right hook into his stomach.
“Stop it!” I scream as Chris gasps and leans forward.
“What’s wrong, Grandpa,” Bryan snarls. “Not so tough now, are you?”
“That all you got, petal?” Chris mocks. “My six-year-old nephew punches harder than that.”
Why is he goading him? He’s unarmed and outnumbered four to one!
“Okay,” Bryan says, lifting his knife. “How about I leave a mark on you like you did to me?”
“Be my guest,” Chris says.
He grabs the blade in Bryan’s hand and squeezes the sharp metal.
“Chris!” I yell as blood seeps through his fingers.
Bryan stares at the knife and shakes his head.
“You’re fucking insane,” he mumbles, glancing back at me. “Your sugar daddy is one sandwich short of a picnic, Harps.”
“Just let him go!” I scream.
Slicing the knife down his palm, Chris doesn’t even flinch as a steady stream of blood pools on the floor between them. Bryan then pulls out a handgun and points it at Chris’s head.
“Time to go to sleep, big man,” he snarls. “And the last eyes you’ll look into are mine. It’s been a blas?-“
The bald guy kicks open the door, and I wrestle against the restraints when he drags my father inside.
“Found him hiding outside!” he yells, pushing my dad down to the floor.
“Stop this!” I scream. “Please! Just let them go!”
“Have they hurt you?” my winded father asks me.
“They better fucking not have,” Chris growls.
“I’m f-fine!” I shout, breathless in panic.
Bryan steps back as the guy on crutches and two colleagues point their guns at my dad and Chris.
“This is quite the dilemma,” Bryan says, tapping his chin. “This psycho grandpa is some kind of trained fighter with a missing screw in his head. And now Papa Bear has turned up. Four on two isn’t as favorable as four on one.”
Bryan nods at the bald guy next to my dad and clicks his fingers.
“Kill him,” he says.
“No!” I howl as the guy lifts his gun.
“Wait,” Chris says, grabbing a set of handcuffs from the table next to him.
We all watch in disbelief as Chris Collins locks the cuffs around his wrists.
“There. That should make it even,” he says, glaring at Bryan. “Let Harper and her dad leave, and you can do whatever the hell you want with me. Just let them go.”
Bryan laughs hysterically.
“As if you just made it even harder for yourself!” he cackles.
Like the psycho he is, Bryan stops laughing and lifts his gun again.
“Chris, no!” I scream as he steps closer to the pistol.
Opening his mouth, I watch in disbelief as he slides the gun along his tongue.
“Let. Her. Go!” Chris screams, the barrel muffling his deep voice.
Bryan snickers. “She got to you real bad, didn’t she, gramps?”
My ex-boyfriend sighs as he pulls the gun from Chris’s mouth. He then walks over to me, stands behind my chair, and runs his grubby hands across my chest.
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.