“No.”
“If you don’t get on that plane?—“
“Then what? The cartel kills me?” She unbuckled her seatbelt, not because the door would open, but because she was done being restrained. “I’m not getting on that plane. I’m not running to Canada. I’m not letting you control my life for one more second.”
“I’ll use the ketamine.”
She turned to face him fully. Her eyes were burning, but she held his gaze. “You can try.”
A muscle in his jaw tensed. “Don’t push me.”
“Come on, Blake. Drug your sister. Carry her unconscious body onto a stolen plane. Fly to Canada with a woman who hates what you’ve become.”
“I’m trying to protect you,” he ground out. His voice was small.
“You’re trying to protect yourself. You’ve always been trying to protect yourself. And every time you do, someone else gets hurt.”
“Mack has messed with your head and turned you against me.
“Mack has done nothing but love me.”
He snorted. “You’re delusional.”
Arguing wouldn’t get her anywhere. “You still have time,” she said. “To do one right thing. One honest thing. Before it’s too late.”
He said nothing. But she saw his hands trembling on the wheel, and she thought that maybe underneath all the lies and the fear and the years of choosing himself over everyone else, her brother was still in there.
And then he grabbed his bag and withdrew a syringe.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She was gone.
Mack stood in the middle of the road, blood running from his temple, and watched Blake’s truck disappear around the curve. The engine sound faded—growling, then humming, then nothing. Just the wind in the pines and the tick of the SUV’s cooling engine in the ditch and the high, steady ringing in his ears that told him his brain was rattled worse than he wanted to admit.
He tried to focus. The road doubled, split, and merged again. He blinked hard, and the world stabilized, but there was a lag—a fraction of a second between seeing something and processing it—that meant the concussion was real. Mild to moderate. Manageable if he didn’t push it. Dangerous if he did.
He was going to push it.
He did the damage assessment on autopilot. Laceration, left temple, superficial—the cut where his head had cracked against the driver’s window. Right arm, aggravated wound—the graze from yesterday had taken a fresh hit when the SUV spun. Pain radiated from his shoulder to his wrist. He made a fist to test his grip. Weak, but functional.
Functional. The word tasted different now than it had yesterday.
Five minutes ago, Alyssa had been sitting beside him with the sun on her face. Her voice from earlier rang in his head. I plan to start wearing it again. If you’re ready to commit.
The ring.
And he’d pulled her toward him and kissed her and told her he’d never stopped being sure.
The terror racked his body, underneath everything. A cold, screaming thing that wanted to take his knees out and leave him in the road. Not the controlled fear he’d experienced in combat—this was something older, more primal.
This was the fear of a man watching the person he loved disappear. The same half-second from the parking structure, except it wasn’t a half-second anymore. It was ongoing. It was now.
She’s alive. Blake won’t hurt her.
That delusion was only thing keeping Mack sane.
He turned toward the SUV. The vehicle was wrecked. It looked like it belonged in a salvage yard.