“We nearlydidn’t. We were about two seconds away from the call hanging up on us. If that had happened, they wouldn’t have called us back. They would have gotten freaked out, disposed of her, and run away. All of it would have been her idiot boyfriend’s fault.”
“I can’t break my promise,” I say through my clenched jaw.
“You can’t break your promise,” he echoes in disbelief. “A fucking psychopath with an honor code. I’ve really seen everything.”
I fist my hands against the leather seat, staring out thewindow. I’ve still got my AK-47 in my lap, but I’m not even holding it anymore. What’s the point, since I promised them I wouldn’t harm them?
“I can’t break my promise,” I repeat.
Logan opens his mouth, probably to attack me with a whole new slew of insults, but Josh interjects from the backseat, “They probably know that about him. That’s the reason they’re trusting his promise. We can feel confident they’re giving us their real location. If Quill wasn’t so honorable, maybe things wouldn’t have played out like that. Maybe they wouldn’t have killed Coltello. Maybe they would have hidden behind him, staking their hopes on him to protect them, rather than on a promise of Quill’s. If Piper is safe, it’s because they’re fully aware and dependent on Quill’s sense of honor.”
That logic shuts Logan right up. But I growl, “I don’t have a sense of honor. I just can’t break a promise.”
Barely repressing an eyeroll, Logan fixes his attention back on the road. He’s going at a pretty surprising speed, given the numerous potholes on the road. I look out the window, my entire body tense, every one of my cells humming with the desperate need to have Piper safe in my arms again.
It takes a bit less than an hour to get to the location, but it feels like an eternity. Logan at last pulls up to an abandoned-looking shack.
“Is she really here?” questions Josh uncertainly.
Before I can answer, Logan’s phone rings again. It’s the same number as before, and he passes it wordlessly to me.
“Hello?” I say, my chest tight with nerves.
“Quill.” It’s not Piper this time. It’s Liam. I can barely breathe, I’m so focused on controlling every single part of me so that I don’t rush in and strangle him with my bare hands. “Piper is safe. Now, I want you to listen to these instructions carefully. Do everything I tell you to. We have a gun pointed at her head, butwe are not going to harm her. We have no plans to, as long as you do everything we say. Okay?”
I clench the phone in my hand and try to calm my breathing. A gun to her head. It’s like they’re trying their best to get me to break my promise.
“Okay,” I accept, my voice strained. “What do I need to do?”
“Now, listen first.” The fucking coward has never sounded so scared. “We did not harm her in any way. I need to tell you… things, because I need to make sure the promise still holds. Not just now, but permanently. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say again, feeling stiff with anxiety. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan listening intently, while behind me, Josh’s breathing tells me he’s just as focused.
“Remember that we killed Coltello to save her. Before that, he had made us stay with her while she peed. We averted our eyes. We didn’t see a thing. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say for a third time, my voice so strained it feels like it’s going to explode.
“She has an injured knee, but we didn’t do it. She fell on a broken glass bottle. Okay?”
My tension dissolves just slightly at hearing how clumsy my Piper is. It tugs on my heartstrings, and makes the injury in my own knee throb in sympathy. Knowing we’ve both been injured in the same area, probably around the same time, makes me breathe a little easier. It’s like an invisible thread connecting us. No matter where she is, no matter how far, she’s mine.
“We didn’t mean to kidnap her. We knew if we didn’t go with Coltello, other soldiers would, and they wouldn’t have the same motivations to help her as we did. Everything we’ve done was to save her, Quill. We have been acting selflessly. For you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree one last time. I smell the bullshit from far away. But at this point, I don’t care. I’m feet away from Piper, and I just need her. Revenge be damned. Every second I’m notholding her in my arms is pure torture.
“Okay,” echoes Liam, sounding somewhat relieved, but still on edge. “You’re going to stay on the phone. You’re not alone in that car outside. I can see you from the window. I want you to come in by yourself. Walk very slowly. Leave your weapons in the car.”
My heart beating a mile a minute, I open the car door, making sure to leave the AK-47 behind. I can feel Josh’s and Logan’s eyes on me, but they don’t dare to move, let alone speak. They’re both waiting in tense silence as I hobble toward the door, not even caring about the pain that throbs through my leg at every step.
“I’m at the door,” I say at last. “Can I come in?”
In lieu of an answer, the door opens from inside. A masked soldier steps aside, his gun pointed at me. My eyes fall on a figure, caked in mud and blood, huddled on the opposite side of the room. The barrel of Liam’s gun is trained on her head.
Piper.
She lifts up her head, her eyes focusing on me. She lifts up her arms to me helplessly, like a child begging to be picked up.
It takes everything I have not to run across the room, grab her and hold her to me. The gun pointed at her threateningly forces me to pause, waiting for their instructions.