the bleeding. A piece of gauze isn’t going to work, and neither is stitching it up.
“This is going to hurt,” is the only warning he gives me before he jabs something into my neck.
“Fuck!” The pain finally registers, rattling through my whole body and reminding me how nice it was to feel nothing before. “You stabbed me.”
Maxwell ignores me, studying my neck where there is now a blunt object protruding.
“Don’t move your head. Don’t rest it on the headrest. Don’t fucking die. Sound good?”
“Why are you helping me?”
He doesn’t answer. He just starts driving again. Now, I think there really is more that he’s not telling me.
“You shouldn’t have fallen in love with her,” he says.
“I know. I should have hated her, but she’s too easy to love.”
Maxwell shakes his head. “Just don’t die.”
“After I’m fixed, then will you take me to where Corbin has taken her? Or are you going to make us torture the location out of you?”
“Neither. You can’t go to her. You know that. Her father’s men will attack you and kill you both if you continue on with her. And you wouldn’t dare risk her life.”
“Then I’ll send Enzo, Zeke, and Beckett.”
“No, you won’t, because they’ll do the same thing to them.”
“And you don’t think they won’t do the same thing to Corbin?”
“No.”
“Well, he can’t help her anyway. Only the man who married her can help her get the treasure.”
I stare at Maxwell. “Don’t tell me Corbin’s plan is to get her to divorce me and then marry her himself.”
“No, that’s not his plan.”
“Then, how does he think he’ll be able to help her?”
“He just can. You don’t need to worry about the details. Liesel already understands, and she agreed. If you won’t listen to me, you need to listen to her for once in your life, or your kids are going to end up completely parentless.”
I growl at the mention of my kids.
“Your kids are safe as long as you stay with them and let Liesel keep her end of the bargain. She doesn’t need your help. She’s got this. Loving her will just put her life in more danger.”
“I can’t un-love her. It’s not possible.”
“Well, it would help her most if you could figure out how to un-love her and prove it to the world. That’s the only way to help her now.”
I frown.
I’m going to get more information from him. As soon as I don’t have to have a knife sticking out of the back of my neck in order to keep me alive, he’s a dead man. So are his sister and brother and anyone else who has threatened our kids’ lives.
We pull up in front of my beach house. All of my friends start running from the house toward us.
I smirk at Maxwell. “You better start talking, or they are going to kill you. You’re the reason Siren may never talk again, Zeke may never hear again, and Beckett may never touch again. They aren’t a forgiving bunch. And as you said, I’ll be in surgery and not able to convince them to keep you alive until you tell us where Corbin and Liesel went.”
“They already know. I already told them.”
“What?”
My door is thrown open, and Enzo and Zeke are grabbing me, trying to figure out how to move me without injuring me more so they can take me to a room I’m sure they’ve set up for surgery. But I need more information from Maxwell before I’m put under. I implore Maxwell to talk to me with my eyes as my jaw is currently on the floor from what he just said.
Maxwell leans over so only I can hear his next words. “You want me and my family dead, but you shouldn’t. Just maybe, we are all on the same side.”
Then I’m whisked away by my friends, away from my ability to question Maxwell further. Darkness overcomes me before my brain can even process how there is a possibility that we are all on the same side.
Stop loving her. If you want to save her, then never love her. The words her father spoke to me all those years ago are the last thing in my brain before I’m unconscious.
2
Liesel
We check into a hotel in Singapore. It’s a penthouse with dozens of rooms, modern appliances, a jacuzzi tub, and a hundred-inch flatscreen in almost every room. You wouldn’t want to be in a room where you couldn’t not soak and fill your brain with constant television.
Corbin and I have