“They’re gone,” I repeated. “All of them. Got blown up on their fuckin’ yacht or whatever.”
“You are sure about this? How do you know?”
“It was on the news.”
Viktor didn’t miss the dryness lacing my tone.
Ididn’t miss the mental gymnastics he did to try and catch up, but I couldn’t help him with that one. If Folk and Alexei wanted him to know about their batshit escapades, they could tell him themselves. Right now, all Viktor needed to know was that these cunts weregone. “Trust me,” I said when he didn’t speak. “They’re dead, so whoever Priest is waiting on every Sunday or whatever, if they’re a Sambini, he’ll be waiting a long fuckin’ time.”
“This means?—”
The tailgate behind me ripped open, disappearing upwards, artificial light streaming into the back of what I fast realised was the blood-stained truck bed of a refrigerated lorry.
I scrambled to get away from Viktor, but as Crows swarmed us, where we were in relation to each other ceased to matter.
Hands grabbed for me. I evaded, but the space was too small and I had nowhere to go. The gun pointed at my chest didn’t help either.
Two of Priest’s goons hustled me down.
Only one went for Viktor. I lost sight of him, and it burned me up that they were going to stick him and there was fuck all I could do about it.
Boots still MIA, my socked feet hit the ground. Damp cotton to wet concrete, chills snaking up my legs.
The bright light was coming from a prefab factory unit. From the security lights above the back entrance. Door open, nothing but blackness beyond, and my footsteps faltered, every instinct I had screaming that if I went through that fuckin’ door, I wasn’t coming out.
Someone kicked me from behind, a boot to the spine. Anger finally breached the iron curtain I’d thrown up around my emotions and I whirled around, fists raised.
But Priest had figured me out. He had an unconscious Viktor by the throat, gun pressed to his temple. “Another step and I’ll blow his brains out. Make you fucking eat ’em, eh? Or maybe I’ll makeyoukill him. Either way, calm your tits, Halliwell. Before I go find your pretty daughter to cheer me up.”
Murder flooded my veins. I wasn’t a killer. So much of my existence had been dedicated to preserving life. But the hate I’d left behind, exorcised by Nash’s warm heart and easy grin,fuck. It came back, hitting me like a wrecking ball, and I wanted Priest dead more than I’d ever wanted anything.
I turned and let the men around me drag me inside, steeling my heart as the heavy door slammed shut behind me.
Where’s Viktor?As I was plunged into soundless darkness, I had no idea, and the fury keeping me standing dissolved into real fear. Had they killed him? OD’d him with smack or cut his fuckin’ throat?
The first notion seemed more likely, and the thought of it broke something. I hit a wall—physically and metaphorically. Maybe cos I was alone. If Viktor’s seven-day theory was anywhere near accurate, it had been literalweekssince Priest had run me down and chucked me in the back of a van, and there’d hardly been a moment where I hadn’t at least heard the raspy sound of Viktor’s breath as he slept. Now there was nothing, and that sense ofdeathsqueezed my fuckin’ soul. For me or for him, I couldn’t tell, but it was coming.
Fuck. I backed up, hitting a protruding object. It felt like a hook. My grasping hand found a thick chain dangling from it and my stomach dropped another ten feet, realisation hitting me like a runaway freight train. I knew where we were. I hadn’t recognised the outside because I’d never seen it, but this place—the hooks, the chains, the fuckin’smellof it.
Even if they didn’t kill me, by the time they were done, I would wish they had.
Silence overwhelmed me again. Using the hook for balance, I sank to the floor, scars throbbing against the cold wall behind me. My heart raced and sweat trickled down my spine. I could take a beating. I’d survived hundreds of them. But this fuckin’ anticipatory nothingness had always got the better of me. It’s why I found it hard to fall asleep when there was no one I trusted nearby. Why I passed out like a dormouse whenever Folk and Nash were around me.
It’s why I couldn’t fuckin’breatheright now, and it made me long for a hit of whatever dirt they’d fired into Viktor’s veins.
You don’t mean that.
All right, Lo.What do you want me to do? Sit here and wait to die?
My brother’s pissed off grunt echoed in my head.
I tuned him out and reached for something else. For Orla and her steely resolve. For Nash and the easy affection he’d gifted me from the start. For their love. Orla’s indomitable strength was beyond me, but her heart was mine, and I shared it with the kindest soul. The warmest. The bravest.
I’ll see them again.
As scared as I was, no fucker could stop me believing that.
Time passed. Wasn’t sure how much. Could’ve been hours. Could’ve been days. I barely moved except to drink the water sporadically tossed through the door.