The Finished Masterpiece Boxed Set - Pepper Winters Page 0,179

in the dirt.

“No!”

Oh, my God.

“No!” I rolled onto my stomach, trying to wriggle with my hands bound behind my back to get to him.

“Gil!”

I fought harder, the ropes slipping a little.

But strong fingers plucked me from the earth. Harsh breath slithered over my nape, and brute strength whipped me around to face him. “Hello again.”

I had no time for him. I didn’t care about him. He was nothing. No one.

“Gil!”

Looking over my shoulder, I willed him to be okay.

But...he didn’t get up.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t react.

“Daddy!” Olive tried to run past Jeffrey, only to be jerked to a stop by her jacket hood again.

“You two, fuck, you have some manners to learn.” Pulling a length of rope from his pocket, he managed to catch Olive’s flying fists and block his ears from her terrible screams as he tied her tight.

Slapping her cheek, he snarled, “Quiet. He’s dead. It’s over. I’m your father now.”

Olive just cried harder.

I had so many things I wanted to say.

So many curses to slur and promises to decree, but the awful, clinging sleep still hadn’t freed me entirely. I opened my mouth, but only tears fell.

He shot him.

He shot him!

“Gil...please wake up!”

Jeffrey slapped me, just as he’d slapped Olive. “You shut up, too.” Bending a little, he wedged his shoulder into my belly and hoisted me over his back. The air crushed out of my lungs. My ribcage bruised as he slung me like a carcass.

Jerking Olive forward, he looked back one last time at Gil’s corpse as he stole us away. “Say goodbye to that useless body painter. You won’t be seeing him again.”

Chapter Six

______________________________

Olin

-The Present-

HE’S GONE.

Gone.

Gone.

I didn’t dare voice the other word. The more permanent word.

Dead.

He’s dead.

He might not be.

I saw him fall.

I watched the bullet.

But I didn’t see the wound.

Didn’t see the blood.

Too far away to feel his pulse or check his breath.

Gone or dead...they were both the same.

The GPS tracker dug into my hip as I swung over Jeffrey’s shoulder. The bones of his arm burrowed into me, compounding agony on top of agony. If Gil was alive, I was grateful. If he was dead, I was distraught.

But it didn’t matter because I’d never see him again.

The GPS coordinates wouldn’t save us as there was no one coming. The little blinking location on Gil’s phone was utterly pointless.

Gil might still be alive.

But...I was dead.

Olive was dead.

Every heartbeat on borrowed time.

Olive hadn’t stopped crying. I’d lost track of how long Jeffrey had dragged us through the dark. The paint on my skin tugged the fine hairs beneath. The bite in the air dressed me in chills. And Olive’s hiccups and distress sent empathy digging deep into my soul.

Her grief consumed the entire forest.

Her belief that her father was dead absolute.

I wanted to comfort her.

To tell her he might be okay. He might live. He might still come and save us.

But I had no air in my lungs from being hung upside down. I had no freedom from pounding temples or slithering tiredness that still threatened to drag me under.

Jeffrey snapped a curse, hauling Olive into a walk as she tripped mid-cry.

She’d just witnessed her father being shot, and he didn’t care at all.

Numbness spread over my stomach, doing its best to protect me from the pain of being carted like a kill. My ears strained for sounds of someone chasing us. Of Gil barrelling through the darkness, healthy and very much alive.

But there was nothing.

No one.

Just my terrified thoughts jumping from topic to topic.

Of freedom.

Of fighting.

Of forgiveness.

Gil hadn’t wanted to do this to me. He’d thought he could win by gambling two lives in order to save one.

But he’d lost.

Three lives in one.

His family...his true blood...his child.

A child that couldn’t stop sobbing.

Jeffrey snarled again, hushing Olive so that only the hoots of owls and scratchings of foxes serenaded us as we travelled the final way.

His footsteps slowed as we reached a small clearing. I tried to see around the upside-down view of his butt but could only make out a lumbering shape in the gloom.

Olive tripped again, only to be hauled to her feet thanks to the rope around her wrists and a harsh jerk from Jeffrey. A clink of keys sounded as he shoved them at her. “Run ahead and unlock, sweetheart. You know the rules now, don’t you?”

She sniffed loudly. The keys stopped singing as her fist clutched them, and she shot forward away from Jeffrey’s abuse. The rope wrapped around her wrists slithered after her in the bracken like a venomous snake.

She