WE’RE DRIVING BACK from Carnage in silence. I can feel the tension in the car. The Spade brothers are going to give me what I want, but they didn’t tell me what it’ll cost me.
It doesn’t even matter. I know it won’t be money.A soul for a soulcomes to mind. And I’d hand mine over without thought. Loving someone is being selfless and Elli is worth that. She deserves nothing less. After everything she’s been through, what I’ve put her through. A part of me hates that she still loves me because I know she deserves better. The other part of me is glad she does because I wouldn’t be able to walk away from her even if she hated me. We’ve gone too far to turn back now.
Reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, I pull out the picture that I still have. I can’t stop thinking about it. The thought of knowing someone else was there unsettles me more and more. The fact that she was in that situation at all makes me want to kill James over and over, but add the fact that now I know more were involved…
It has to be Linc, right? He knew about her and James. But what if it’s not? Who else is alive and knows what James did to her? Did this other guy do it too? She hadn’t told me about Linc until her mother married him, so who else could she be keeping secrets for?
“What’s that?” Tyson finally breaks the silence. His tone tells me he’s still angry with me but curious enough to ask.
“I found this older picture of Elli. James is in it.” Tyson knows her past. I’ve filled him in. He wasn’t going to help me out without knowing everything. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have him on my side. Even if he doesn’t agree with what I’m going to do to end it.
He frowns. “Meaning?”
“Meaning someone else took it.”
He nods to himself. “You think it’s Linc?”
“It has to be.”
He goes to speak but my cell rings and I seeGunnerwritten across the screen. “Hey, man…”
“Where the fuck are you?” he demands.
I frown, hearing the faint sound of music in the background. “With Tyson on our way to Blackout. What’s up?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you and Amelia—congratulations on the engagement, by the way.” I roll my eyes at that. “But I figured you’d like to know that your plaything is at Harrison’s house party.”
“What?” I snap, pulling the phone from my ear and placing it on speakerphone so I can look at the cameras in our house. She’s nowhere on them.
“Yeah,” he goes on. “I was standing in the kitchen, and she walked in. Sarah got her a drink, but Holland came up and took her for somethingmore.”
“Motherfucker!”
“Tell me what to do, Sin,” he says while I track her location, but her cell it off. Good thing I know where Harrison lives. “Want me to let her go? Or remove her from the party?”
“We’re twenty minutes away,” I growl, knowing a lot can happen in that amount of time. No telling how long she’s already been there. “Drag her out of there by any means necessary,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Thought so,” he mutters to himself.
“Gunner?” I speak before he can end the call.
“Yeah?”
Tyson slams on the brakes to make a U-turn as I hold up the address to show him. “Are you there alone?”
“No, Prickett is here somewhere.”
“I want Holland.” If he came and got Elli, it’s because he has plans for her. I killed his best friend, left his body to rot as a warning. Elli doesn’t know that but I’m sure Holland does.
“Got it.” He hangs up and I throw my phone down.
“Fuck!”
“We can be there in fifteen.” Tyson slams on the gas, now going the opposite direction.
“What the fuck is she thinking?” I growl to myself. I ruined her drugs, so she went out to get more. I haven’t checked on the cameras in over two hours because we were at Carnage. I didn’t have any reception in there.
My cell rings again and I bend down to pick it up off the floor where I threw it. “Let me talk to her,” I demand when I see it’s Gunner again and immediately put him on speakerphone.