I can’t deny that tonight we had timing on our side. Had we skipped out and waited for our target’s next appearance, we would have missed our shot at ending his miserable life. He was too powerful in this world, too determined. We had to put him down. When we overthrow our father and rise in power, he would have come for our throats to take our throne, and unfortunately for him, we’re not going to be fair rulers.
It’s just a shame that all of these fucked-up events lead to us losing sight of Shayne. She was so fucking scared, her eyes wide and haunted, but there was a determination there, a fire and will to survive that I respect. I have a good idea where she is, and the second we can, we’ll be taking her sweet ass home, but if she’s not there and she’s taken this opportunity to run, I will personally rain down hell over her.
I jump down from the back of the transport vehicle, stretching my neck to either side, feeling that sweet crack at the top of my spine. Roman strides around to the driver’s side and shoots out the locks. He reaches in and hauls the driver’s body out before moving out of the way as it drops to the asphalt with a heavy thump.
He climbs up into the bloodied driver’s seat, his fucking ego too big to allow anyone else the privilege, and I follow suit as Levi climbs into the back holding cell of the truck. The doors slam and Roman takes off just as I open the small window between the front seats and the back, finding Levi grinning at me as he makes himself comfortable.
“We’ve gotta make this fast,” Roman says. “This truck probably has a tracking signal on it. We need to ditch it as soon as we can.”
“Too fucking right,” Levi says. “I’m too pretty for prison.”
I scoff. “Not as pretty as me.”
“You’re both ugly motherfuckers,” Roman mutters, switching hands on the steering wheel and cringing as the bullet wound across his arm starts to give him hell. “Either of you still have your phones? I want to check the GPS location of the Escalade before we start driving hours in the wrong fucking direction.”
“Nope,” Levi says as I shake my head. “Those bastards stripped me bare. Took everything I had on me. I was only seconds away from having a cavity search. That fucker wasn’t even gonna use lube.”
Roman glances through the small window at Levi, his brow arching. “You would have liked that,” he teases. “Did you have anything incriminating stored on your phones?”
“Nothing more than what you would,” he says. “We’re as good as fucked. You know they’ll be able to pinpoint the location of the castle.”
“Come on,” I murmur, my eyes locked in the distance, prepared and ready for any threat. “They’ve always known where we’ve been. They just don’t have the proof they need to make it stick. It’s all hearsay and rumors. We’re too fucking careful.”
“Don’t believe that for a fucking second,” Roman says. “They have everything they need to take us right to the slaughterhouse, especially after what we just did to their transport driver, but they’re too deep in Father’s pocket. Either way, someone tipped them off about tonight’s party.”
“It could have been anyone,” I tell him, nodding up ahead to an old gas station. “There were hundreds of people there tonight, most of them with kidnapped girls who would have done anything to be freed. Tonight wasn’t an attack on us, we were just stupid enough to walk straight into a trap.”
“I told you I smelled a fucking rat,” he says, repeating the same words that he’s said at least a million times since our capture.
“Whether there was a rat or not, we needed to go to that party,” Levi says, reminding us of the reason we ventured out to that bullshit in the first place. “We did what we had to do and now I just want to go get Shayne back. We promised her that she was safe with us, and now look what’s happened.”
Roman scoffs. “If you’re going to start crying, close the fucking window so I don’t have to hear it.”
“You’re one to fucking talk,” he shoots back at Roman. “What was that bullshit with her last night anyway? She was practically throwing herself at you and you made her feel like a piece of shit.”
Roman clenches his jaw and stares out the front windshield as he pulls off into the gas station, but all I can seem to do is replay last night over and over again in my head, and the memory of it all instantly puts me in a sour mood. I was doing my best to try and forget that I’m not enough for her.