Both of them.Tension bound the cab of my truck. Anxiety rode high. Nothing but fuel to feed the fire that burned and ravaged and became this violent aggression that raged through our veins.
Royce sat in the front seat of my truck. Rhys in the back.
Lincoln and my father had taken Emily, Maggie, Anna, and my mother to Violet’s farm so they could all be together.
Safety in numbers.
Detective Casile was on a flight out. Working on putting together a team he could trust.
After what happened last night with Fitzgerald and Douglas?
With this piece-of-shit crooked private investigator?
We knew this had reached a head.
I should have known it the second I saw those pictures that the investigator was not who he’d pretended to be. Should have known exactly how he’d had access to them.
Should have known Lester Ford could get to anyone.
He was the master of that fucked-up universe.
And Lily knew all of it. Had all the details. Had borne witness to it throughout the years of her captivity. She was the one person who could bring his entire empire down.
And I knew he’d stop at nothing to silence her.
I picked up my phone and glanced at it again in the vain hope that I might have missed a call or text from Violet.
Praying for a miracle and knowing it wasn’t gonna happen.
Knowing she was in trouble.
Felt it all the way to my soul. That connection blared in the deepest parts of me, shouting of alarm and distress.
I threw my phone back to the console and roughed a hand over my face. I was going to lose my shit.
Felt my skin crawling with desperation.
Desperate to get to her. To find her.
Couldn’t let something happen to her.
Couldn’t.
“She’s going to be fine,” Royce rumbled, his jaw clenched. Dude wasn’t close to being immune to the turmoil that radiated from my skin.
His fingers beat on the windowsill like he could tap out the anxiety.
“Hell, yeah, she is. She’s probably all good and just doesn’t want to talk to this jackass. I mean, I wouldn’t want to talk to you, either.” I watched Rhys’ brow lift with the consequence of what I’d done as he looked at me through the rearview mirror, injecting the truth of it with a shot of humor.
It was kind of fucked up that I hoped the asshole was right.
That she’d disappeared because she couldn’t handle the truth of what she’d seen.
Fact I’d known where her sister was. Had kept it from her in this skewed, distorted sense of loyalty.
That devotion real.
But at what cost?
In the end, what had it done?
Even if he was right, I definitely didn’t need his shit right then.
He’d actually fuckin’ shoved me to the ground when I’d told him what was going down, unable to believe what I’d kept from him.
What I’d unknowingly gotten Lily involved in.
How I’d come so close to getting Violet condemned.
Royce had grabbed hold of him. Told him to save the anger for those who deserved it. That we didn’t have time right then. More important matters were at hand.
Because Rhys might be spouting it now—that Violet was just pissed and giving me the cold shoulder and was focused on trying to find her sister—but the three of us knew that wasn’t the case.
Our spirits wouldn’t let us rest with that.
Besides, Kade hadn’t heard a peep from her, and I knew if she had the address, she would have shown. He’d kept us updated, letting us know the neighborhood where he lived had remained completely still.
It’d been almost three hours since anyone had heard from Violet. That would have given her plenty of time to get there.
I glanced at the clock.
Counting down.
My foot to the floor as the truck sped down the two-lane country road.
It was the only place we knew to go.
Trees whipping by. Bright rays of sunlight strobing through the branches as we blazed underneath.
Royce wiped the sweat that was gathering on his temple, dude antsy as fuck.
Me feeding him, him feeding me. “When I set out to take down my stepfather, had no clue how far this bullshit went.”
“Evil has no bounds.” The words were grit.
He grunted an incredulous laugh. “Funny how that bastard had acted like he was the king. That everyone bowed to him. And it turned out he was nothing but a puppet.”
“Never meant for you to get in this deep,” I said as I swung a glance his way.
“Always have been in this deep. I just didn’t know it.”
I gave him a tight nod, and I glanced at Rhys who shouldn’t have even been there. Asshole had jumped in the fucking truck when we were getting ready to take off.
“Don’t give me that look, bro. I know what you’re thinking. You two are in deep? You can bet your asses I am, too. That’s just the way it is. If I were in something, would you turn a blind eye? Let me go it alone?”