Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,29

something cold, heard the snick of a lock rattling together, and I glanced down at my wrist.

Handcuffs.

She had handcuffed me back to the bed.

I roared and surged to my feet but she danced back out of reach. I tried to pull the bed but it was cast iron and I was too fucking weak. Jumping to my feet like that made me so dizzy I was nauseous. I fell back against the mattress.

“Calm down, killer. It’s for your own good.”

I swear to God, I was going to tear her apart.

“This is a bad call, Joan. You know that,” I told her through my teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And you won’t. Because you’re an asshole, not a dick. And you’re not going anywhere. And you’re definitely not going anywhere in my car,” Joan hissed at me, looking brave and scared all at once. “Revenge is a stupid idea, Max. You know that. You left the life. You left, but you came back for who knows what stupid reason. But you left because you know it’s not worth dying for those guys.”

“They tried to kill me!” I roared, trying once again to get to my feet.

“So you’re going to go kill them? And die in the process or be sent to jail?”

“Whatever it takes,” I said. All I knew was revenge. Eye for an eye. Blood for blood.

“Well, then you get to stay here until you change your mind.”

“You’re going to pay for this, Joan, you know that.” I could not let this pass. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to let me out.”

“I don’t have to do shit,” she said.

She left the room. She just left it. Left me chained to a bed, sweating and dizzy.

“Joan!” I yelled.

She stuck her head back in the room. “The neighbors think we’re newlyweds so try to put a little more…you know…love into it when you yell my name. Like this…” She cleared her throat and tipped back her head. “Max!” she cried, all breathy and sexed up.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me!” she yelled again, breathy and moany and sexy as all fuck.

I rattled the handcuffs again, because I was not entertained.

“Before you get all aggro on me, remember what happens if the cops get called. Zo is pinning the explosions at the strip club on the Skulls. And you…you’ve got what? Some priors? Some outstanding warrants? If you make our sweet old neighbors so nervous they call the cops, you’re the one going down.”

“When I get out of this, Joan…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “I’ve heard it before.”

She tossed an empty water bottle onto the bed. “What…?”

“In case you have to pee.”

And then she shut the door.

“Joan!” I yelled.

And her voice came back from the other room like we were having sex. “Max!”

Chapter 10

Joan

I wasn’t watching him sleep. I was thinking. I was formulating a plan. An argument that would sway him, that would make him see things my way.

The tiny, white bikini I wore was a visual aid.

Because if there were any breaks I caught in this life, they were a rocking metabolism and Aunt Fern’s rack. I made this cheap, white bikini look better than it should.

Sitting on the dresser, I licked yogurt from a spoon and tried to think of what was going to really sway a guy like Max. What was going to make him give up on revenge and instead help me get my sister free.

He was sprawled across the bed, the sheets pulled up to his waist with his injured leg kicked out. Every once in a while he jerked, like the dream he was having had teeth, and the handcuffs rattled against the bed.

This was kidnapping.

I could add that to the list of shit I never thought I’d do.

Finally he stirred in earnest and I held my breath. Trying not be nervous. Trying not to show him that I was scared. Max was a wild animal and if he sensed fear he’d come after me. Hardcore.

He lifted his head off the mattress, his black hair, wild around his head. That spot on his scalp with the stitches was so pink and wounded. Tender. The only soft thing about him. The rest of him, his chest and arms, was rawhide and muscle and grit covered with bright tattoos. And Technicolor bruises.

Dylan, his brother, was thick and padded with muscle. He looked like a boxer. Like a beast.

Max was whittled down to the bone. No excess. I recognized it because I felt exactly the same way. Like there was