“I cannot protect you from them while I’m chained. They’re gonna use us against each other and I want their focus on me. I don’t have the information they want and that’s gonna piss them off and they’re gonna communicate that. I want their anger directed at me, not you. So you keep your eyes closed. No matter what you hear, you don’t watch, you don’t speak.”
“Maybe if you tell them—”
“No. We don’t tell them anything. What we do is stay quiet and give my team time to find us. As soon as they get anything from us, we’re dead. Both of us, honey. They’ll do me first thinking if you see that, then you’ll talk. We stay quiet.”
“And what, let them beat on you?”
I sighed and my lungs protested the exhale, reminding me I already had one broken rib and I’d have more before this was over. When Dickhead came back, he wasn’t going to beat on me, he was going to beat the ever-living fuck out of me and Evette was going to be forced to listen. I didn’t want her to watch it, too.
“Yeah, honey, they’re gonna beat on me and when they do I want your eyes closed and for you to slip away somewhere into that smart mind of yours. Someplace outside of this room. Think about anything but what’s going on in front of you.”
“You can’t ask me to let them hurt you.”
“I just did.”
“But—”
“There’s nothing that you can do to stop it. I need you to give this to me.”
“But—”
“I’m fucking chained,” I snapped, losing the loose hold on my fury. “Chained, Evette. I cannot stop them from hurting you. I want them to forget you’re in the room and concentrate on me. If they touch you I will lose my fucking mind and get us both killed. I need to focus on buying us time and to do that I need you to keep your eyes closed and your mouth shut. No matter what they do to me. You stay silent.”
Evette lifted her head and when her tear-filled eyes caught mine I struggled to lock down my emotions.
Powerless.
Goddamn powerless.
A feeling I swore to myself I would never feel again. And this time around it was worse. So much fucking worse. My Evette had been taken against her will, tied to a chair, gagged, and she was scared and bleeding. Yet I couldn’t do fuck-all about it. I couldn’t go to her and hold her as she cried. I couldn’t protect her against what she was going to hear and see. But more, I couldn’t protect her from bodily harm.
I’d utterly failed.
All my pent-up anger grew and swelled until I couldn’t contain it. Fear and fury swept through me, blazing a trail of destruction, causing a tightness in my chest that I was also powerless to stop. That was when my mind blanked and I felt no pain as I struggled against the cuffs binding my wrists. I wrapped my hands around the chain and yanked. I twisted and fought to break free with the singular intention to get Evette to safety.
I couldn’t let her see what was in store for me. I’d gladly take the beating but not with her looking on, not with her listening.
“Stop.”
I heard her plea turn into a sob but I couldn’t rein in the rage.
“Gabe! Stop.”
But it was too late.
Too late for me. Too late for her.
Dickhead and Asshole were back.
Chapter 24
Shit, Goddamn.
Garrett sat in front of his workstation and forced himself to watch the security footage again. It had been a well-choreographed snatch and grab. A flashbang was thrown out of a 4Runner’s back window. Reason one why Garrett never drove behind an SUV that had a roll-down back window. Then Gabe was boxed in, sideswiped, and gunned down.
Shit, Goddamn.
“Anything?” Zane barked and Garrett clenched his jaw in an effort not to ream his boss’s ass.
“It’s been two minutes, Z. I’m still waiting. Tex is working on it.”
“Run down what we know.”
Garrett didn’t want to go over what they’d been over twice already. He wanted to watch the video until something jumped out at him and told him something he didn’t know.
But he gave Zane what he wanted.
“Three cars. No plates. Two men wearing masks. Professionals—start to finish, forty-four seconds.”
That was what they knew—all they knew.
Garrett’s desk phone rang and without preamble, he picked up and said, “You find anything?”
“I was able to get the VIN,” Tex announced. “The 4Runner is