Deadly Coincidence (Brantley Walker Off the Books #4) - Nicole Edwards Page 0,63

to be such a dick. I could’ve left her something to wake up to.”

Dante’s stomach lurched, the thought of what Marcus had intended to do to JJ making him nauseous.

“Oh, well. Maybe next time.” Marcus started pacing again. “You said the first thing she’d do is call your old man, right?”

Yeah. Dante had said that. That and a whole lot more. “Or her boss,” Dante supplied.

“He’s the cop guy, right?”

“Task force,” Dante corrected. “But yeah. Once he knows what happened, he’ll call my dad. They’ll be expecting a ransom call.”

Even as the words came out, Dante couldn’t believe he was saying them. He couldn’t believe he’d stooped this low.

He blamed it on the drugs. While he was capable of moving through life pretending not to be high as a kite, Dante had long ago given himself over to his addiction. It was an expensive habit, but it allowed him to get through each day, to deal with the shitty hand he’d been dealt. People thought it was easy being the son of a politician, but they were wrong. So many rules, so many expectations. Everyone thought he had it easy because his parents paid for most of what he had—his two-bedroom apartment overlooking Lady Bird Lake, his brand-new Lexus LS.

Dante didn’t see it as them providing for him. It was more of a payment. For him to continue to play the dutiful son. After all, his father expected so much, said he had to always be on his best behavior. Whenever he went to a strip club, he’d get read the riot act. God forbid he went to a club and was seen with a hot chick who wasn’t some debutante. No one should have to live like that.

“Once they see all that blood, they’ll think you’re dead,” Marcus mused.

They would. And that, Dante knew, could be a problem. The intention had been to make them believe he was seriously injured, to plant the idea that the kidnappers weren’t playing around. But the amount of blood they’d left in JJ’s house … no way would anyone survive an injury like that.

The majority of the blood—which was supposed to be all the blood—that they’d decorated JJ’s house with had been that of animals. Dante hadn’t been a part of the blood-gathering process, thank God. Marcus had gladly offered to gather what they needed to make the scene believable. As for what they’d do when the task force decided to run a DNA test on the blood and found out it wasn’t human, Dante had no idea. But he seemed to be the only one worried about it. According to Marcus, it was handled.

Only a little while longer. Another hour. Two. Then it’d be time to call his father, demand money. Once it was delivered to Marcus—a plan that, in Dante’s opinion, was also rather foolproof, too—Dante would be returned safely.

At least that was what Dante was telling himself. He absolutely did not want to think that Marcus could actually be a crazed killer and, in doing this, he’d unleashed the beast.

*

Juliet Prince sat cross-legged on the bed in the cheap, run-down motel room, her pawn-shop-purchased laptop open in front of her.

No, her accommodations weren’t what she was used to, but she’d been learning how to deal. She had enough clothes to last her three days, enough quarters to wash those clothes when it became necessary again, and free Wi-Fi. What more could a girl ask for?

Everything.

That was what Juliet wanted. She wanted every goddamn thing. And she wanted Travis Walker to give it to her.

Lifting her head, Juliet caught sight of the peeling tan wallpaper just beneath the water stain on the ceiling in the corner.

Yeah, she fucking hated it here. It smelled like cheap booze and piss, and she refused to think what they might actually wash the sheets with. If they washed them at all.

But it was easier staying in the rent-by-the-hour, no-questions-for-cash motels than worrying about identification and whatnot. Since she’d been forced to give up her identity thanks to that bastard Travis Walker, she was honing a new skill: adaptation.

In the interim, of course, because this damn sure wasn’t how she intended to live out the rest of her days. Nor did she intend to spend a minute in a cage.

She glanced at the burner phone sitting beside her, saw that Marcus had moved on to the raunchy portion of their conversation. Juliet was happy to ignore it. No way in hell would she touch that man.