The Ruthless (Queen Crow #2) - J. Bree Page 0,2

I’m fine; I’m not in danger. Don’t come and… don’t call Lips yet. I’ll call her once I’m out of here.”

He grumbles under his breath, the calls of gulls behind him. “That’s not fucking helping, Queenie; if you need to get out of there this bad then something has happened, and I’m not leaving you out there.”

There’s a sound down the tunnel and I pull the phone away from my ear as I try not to disgrace myself. I will my feet to be silent, because I can’t stop walking, not even to avoid someone seeing me leave. This sort of frenzied escape gives me flashbacks to my childhood terror at the hands of Senior and for that alone I might never forgive Atticus.

When the sound stops and no one rushes down the tunnel to kill me, I put the phone back to my ear to find Aodhan freaking out.

“Avery fucking Beaumont, if you don’t answer me soon I’m putting a Molotov cocktail through Crawford’s fucking window, so help me God!”

“I’m fine; I thought I heard something. Please tell me Jack is close?”

There’s cursing and an argument down the line between Aodhan and Illi before finally, Aodhan mutters to me, “He’s close, Queenie. He’s breaking all of the fucking road laws to get to you. I’m finishing up here now, but we’re over an hour away. Jack… Jack won’t let anything happen to you.”

I believe him, but that doesn’t help the panic in me, desperately needing him here with me so I have something stable now that once again Atticus has turned everything upside down.

It kills me to hang up the phone but Illi’s snarling is clear and I don’t want to distract Aodhan from… whatever the hell they’re actually doing. I mean, I know what they’re doing because that tape of what happened in the Jackal’s lair is out there somewhere, hanging over our heads like a freaking guillotine blade. But I don’t know the details of who they’re paying off or cutting to pieces… and honestly, I couldn’t care less.

I just need it gone.

My phone buzzes again but instead of the reassurance from Aodhan that I’m expecting, I find a text message from Jackson.

Are you dead? I’m about to put in an Amber Alert for you with the Wolf.

An Amber Alert—even when he’s supposedly concerned, the idiot is still making light of the situation.

I take a full minute to reply, the wording carefully chosen.

No need, I’m alive just like the man in Atticus’ basement. You wouldn’t happen to know who he has chained down there, do you?

His reply is much quicker.

Queenie, you know damn well I didn’t even know there was a basement. How the fuck am I gonna know about Crawford’s secret prisoners? I should’ve known he had a secret freak fetish hidden under all those fucking suits.

I still don’t know for sure if I believe him; my trust isn’t easy to win and Jackson has already broken it once before.

Another message comes through.

Should I start rifling through his fucking sock drawers and find out who it is? Whatever you need, I’m good for.

My gut reaction is that I don’t want him to start looking into Atticus, but that is all about protecting the man I’ve spent more than half of my life chasing and obsessing over.

Ash was on that board.

Ash and Harley, Lips and Blaise—it doesn’t matter how much I love Atticus, I could never blindly trust him and lead us all to our deaths. My mother did exactly that; she trusted Senior even when all the warning bells were screaming in her mind, because it was too damn scary to face the monster who had lied and stolen her heart.

I will never do the same.

Impress me, Coyote. Find the man in the basement and maybe I’ll trust you again.

I’m not expecting him to take it seriously, especially since the Jackal is dead and his place as an ally isn’t really in question outside of my family. No one knows about his little indiscretion of handing information over to the Devil without telling us about it.

Or the fact that Nate was very obviously related to Lips.

But his reply back to me actually… impresses me.

I’ll have it to you by the time you wake up. There’s nothing I can’t find, and I’m not having the Wolf’s Queenie underestimate me.

I wait inside the tunnel until Aodhan’s text comes through saying Jack has arrived and I’m safe to walk out of the dark space. I would never admit it,