One: my sister could be dead by now.
Two: After everything that happened tonight with Dusty, especially after that kiss, my feelings for him could be my downfall.
Who kisses like that? With such power? With such vigor and passion?
Heat traveled from my core to my cheeks as the moment our lips touched washed over me. My mind had gone blank, and my knees had wobbled. I’d lost myself in that moment. Forgot who he was. Who I was. What we both had done.
I reached the last rusty rung and pushed open the hatch. Then I pocketed my phone and pressed my hands on the opening edge, shifting my weight up. My head peeked inside the back area of Dad’s old Challenger, where there used to be a leather backseat. I had taken it out six months ago—since the police closed Annie’s case—and made this hole in the bottom so I could go in and out without being noticed.
I cried when I made the alterations to the Challenger as much I’d cried the day Dad took his own life two years ago. I loved that car so much. It was the only thing he’d left us beside the house. Sometimes when I got into the driver’s seat, I could still smell him.
After Annie, nothing mattered, though.
The Challenger was the perfect camouflage. No one would suspect that old, abandoned car in the backyard hid a big hole underneath that led to a secret tunnel and a covert bunker. And if someone saw me getting in and out of it frequently, they would just say I’d missed my dad.
I’d dug the passage and built the whole thing from scratch by myself. Courtesy of the three years I’d spent in engineering school, it wasn’t such a hard task. Exhausting and time consuming, but not hard. My education, though unfinished, didn’t go to waste after all.
I slid to the front seat and got out. Darkness covered the backyard and spilled inside the house. I turned on the lights and made a beeline to the kitchen. A bag of chips or a can of beans wouldn’t sustain that stud after two days of starvation. He needed real homemade food. Meat to be exact.
A dreadful click murdered my thoughts. A sound I’d been anticipating for two days. Until a few minutes ago when Dusty’s lips messed me up.
I stood still as the cold muzzle of the gun that had just clicked bore into the back of my head.
“Where’s my son?” A rough, husky voice asked quietly. Roar’s. His voice and face would be carved in my memory until the day I died.
An annoying static hummed in my brain. Everything was going according to plan. Until that kiss. Now, all my thoughts were muddled. My feelings, too. I’d been preparing for this moment for six months, for the time I’d be asked that question, the time I’d be taken, too numb, too angry to be afraid. But Dusty had ignited my soul, awakened emotions I didn’t even know they existed.
Now, I was afraid.
If I let Roar take me now, Dusty would have no idea where I went. He’d think I’d lied to him. Played him. Besides, God only knew how long it would take Roar to break and give me Annie back. In his current condition, Dusty could wind up dead.
What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I’d never meant for Dusty or anyone to die? I just wanted to save my sister. If I didn’t let Roar take me, any chance I had left to get my sister back would be lost. What was I supposed to do now?
Unless…
Please let me help you get her back. I can and I will get her back for you.
Dusty’s words echoed in my head, but no. My trust issues screamed at me all at once. How could they not? Part of me was still skeptical about Dusty. He was Roar’s son. A Night Skull. Everything he said, everything that happened between us could be a big fat lie.
How could I trust him or anyone including myself? I kissed the son of my enemy. I cared about him. My judgment was clouded. Obviously, I was no longer the Cameron I knew. I was not to be trusted.
Goddamn you, Dusty.
Goddamn your devilish lips and scorching body.
Goddamn your smile, your tenderness that outgrew your strength.
He had ruined me for life, and I was about to pay the price.
CHAPTER 21
Cameron
“Where’s my sister?” I finally found the courage to speak.
Roar grunted. “I figured leaving you alive would bite me in the ass later.”
I stared at the refrigerator door in the dark, his shadow towering over me. “Why did you?”