With them both being here the way they were, I discovered something…
Fear turned me on.
“You will soon learn it isyouwho will be taking orders from us. Not the other way around,” Jay said as he stepped forward and took hold of my arm.
I tried to snatch my arm away, but that only caused him to tighten his grip more. He was close enough now that I could see something was different. Though I couldn’t really call his earlier actions playful, he hadn’t hurt me. The best way to describe the exchange, the touching, the innuendoes, was to call it some sort of perverted banter… but now? Something was off, and huge warning bells started pealing in my head. Jay must have been reading my thoughts because, right as I was about to open my mouth to release a bloodcurdling scream, he placed his fingertip on my lips.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he hissed. “It would be a shame to gag that pretty mouth of yours.”
Jay had a gun in his hand. Had it always been there, and I’d been too blinded by their blue eyes and good looks to notice?
The warning bells were now blaring.
“What do you want?” I asked, not taking my gaze off the gun as Banks approached me. “I don’t keep much money here, but—”
“Money? Hell, this isn’t about money,” Jay said.
“Do we look like fucking petty thieves?” Banks growled as if I’d insulted his honor or something.
Okay, if not money then what… surely not, but… “Wait, is this all because I had lunch with Kit? Really?” I focused back on Jay. “Okay, fine, you sick fuck. I’ll leave her alone! You shitheads proved your point. I’ll never see her again if that means I don’t ever have to see any of you all again either. We can all agree to leave each other alone.”
“Too late for that,” Jay said as he jabbed the gun into my ribcage. “The plan has been set in motion, and I never alter a well-organized plan.”
This wasn’t happening!
Why were they doing this?
Tears welled as my heart stopped. What the fuck was going on? Who were these men? I hadn’t pegged them as dangerous before. Arrogant, yes. Bossy as hell, absolutely. But not dangerous.
Was I so wrong in judging them?
The gun in my side and the firm hand holding my arm screamed I was definitely wrong.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I said softly. “I didn’t realize… I should have listened to your warning. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t happen again,” Jay said, squeezing my arm tighter. “That’s the first thing you’ve gotten right tonight.”
Jay nodded at Banks, who then made his way to the back of the store where an exit led to a back parking lot.
I remained perfectly still. Even though I wasn’t being restrained, the gun digging into my side had me staying as still as I could. I didn’t think this man—Kit’s brother—would actually shoot me to death in my own store, but I clearly had misjudged them up to this point.
“So as I was saying,” Jay said. “We’ve made a plan. You’re going to be coming with us to Barrett’s Mountain. For some reason, Kit considers you a friend, and she won’t have any when we move. So, because you want to be her friend so badly, even when we told you to stay the fuck away, we are going to be nice and grant you your wish. Youcanbe friends with her. But in our cabin. On our family’s vast wilderness out in the fucking middle of nowhere.”
I shook my head in confusion but kept staring straight ahead. His words were blending with the ringing in my ears. “I don’t understand. I told you I would leave her alone. I will. I swear it.”
“And like we said, it is too late. Now we actually want you to be around her. You can be around her all your pretty little heart desires once we get you to the mountain.”
My legs threatened to buckle, and my heart beat so hard against my chest, it nearly hurt. “Cabin? I don’t want to go to go anywhere with you.”
Jay chuckled. “Did it sound like I was asking?”
I slowly turned my head so I could look at him. “Please. I don’t understand what is going on here. I don’t know what you are talking about or who you all are, what you really want. Just let me go, and I swear I will do whatever it is you want from me.”
“How many times do I have to say this? We want you to come with us to our mountain. It’s time for my brothers and me to get the fuck off the grid, and we are taking Kit with us. Up until your annoying and troubling ass got involved, we were going to go alone, but it dawned on us you could be useful to Kit”—he gave an evil laugh as the back door opened—“and to all of us.”
Before I could ask what he meant by being useful, my attention was drawn to the door as it slammed open. I watched Rye drag in a large black bag. It looked like something that would come straight out of a morgue on some crime show on TV. Whatever was inside, was heavy enough to make him have to work at pulling it inside.
“I’m getting really sick of always being in charge of getting the bodies,” he grumbled as he closed the door behind him once the large bag was across the threshold. “I don’t know how I get stuck with this job. Every. Single. Time.”