Chapter 29
Nathan
“Get up!” a voice snapped as I felt a hand dig into my hair and yank me to my feet.
Pain ratcheted through my body as searing agony fired up my arms which had been bound behind my back for hours.
I stumbled as my numb legs tried to hold my weight.
The hold on my hair was unforgiving, and I winced when I received another sharp yank.
Then, blessedly, hard fingers closed around my upper arm instead.
My vision was fucked up because I’d been punched repeatedly on the right side of my face. My assailant was definitely a leftie.
I wanted to spit out the blood that had collected in my mouth while I’d been passed out, but I couldn’t find the strength to do even that, so I had no choice but to swallow it.
My captor dragged me maybe a hundred feet or so before he shoved me to the hard cement floor.
My knees buckled as soon as I hit the ground, and with my hands bound, I had no way to break my fall.
I tried rolling on my shoulder and barely stifled a cry of pain as a booted foot hit me in the middle of my back.
“Not so tough when it’s not an innocent girl you’re toying with, huh?
” another voice said as heavy footsteps headed my way.
That voice I did know. I’d heard it for the first time several hours earlier when I’d answered Brody’s phone while he’d been asleep.
I’d been in his room talking to him while he’d waited for his pain meds to kick in.
I’d grabbed the phone to put it on vibrate when it had started ringing, but when I’d recognized my mother’s phone number, I’d answered it instead.
The memory came back in a rush.
“Brody?”
My mother’s voice was uncharacteristically shaky.
“No, Mom, it’s Nathan.”
“Oh, Nathan, thank God,” she said, and then I heard a muffled squeak just before a man’s voice had come on the line.
“Mr. Wilder, for someone who likes the cameras so much, you’ve proven awfully difficult to find lately.”
I stiffened as I realized who I was talking to. And what it meant that he was talking to me using my mother’s phone.
“Please don’t hurt her,” I said softly so Brody wouldn’t wake up. I took the phone and went into the attached bathroom.
“Your parents will be just fine if you do what I say,” he said.
Parents.
Jesus, he had both my mother and my father? If he was with my parents, who the hell was Vincent questioning?
“Mr. Wilder,” the man repeated impatiently, and I realized I’d been quiet for too long.
“Yes, okay, anything,” I quickly said. “I’ll do anything.”
As much as I hated my parents, I still loved them.
“Your one job, if you want your parents to get through this thing in one piece, is for you to make it to the mainland. Alone.”
The fact that he’d referenced the mainland had me guessing he knew exactly where I was. I could only assume he’d tracked Brody’s phone or something.
“My associate will be waiting for you at the Anacortes ferry terminal.”
“I…I can’t leave. People are watching the house,” I said frantically.
“You seem like a resourceful young man, Mr. Wilder. I suggest you figure it out, and quickly. You have three hours. And if you’re followed…”
I didn’t even let him finish the threat. “I’ll be there,” I said. “Alone.”
“No phones. My associate will be searching you,” he warned.
“Yes, okay.”
“Three hours,” the man said again, and then he hung up.
Panic seared through me as I checked the watch Vincent had given me.
I stared at it as I realized it would be the first thing Vincent checked when he found out I was gone.
And if Cain realized I was missing quickly enough, Vincent could tell him where I was and he’d intercept me before I could make sure my parents were safe.
But if I left the watch behind, I had no hope of Vincent finding me.
I took the watch off and studied it. It took me several precious seconds to finally figure out how to open the back of it.
My eyes fell on the battery. Removing it would mean Vincent couldn’t track me, but I couldn’t be sure that putting it back in would somehow magically link the watch back up to the app Vincent used to monitor it.
It didn’t matter; I didn’t have a choice.
I sent Vincent a silent apology and then pulled the battery out.
“I don’t know what girl you’re talking about,” I managed to get out as the guy behind me pulled me upright so I was on my knees.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as pain washed over my entire body.
The man who’d called me had also been the one who’d beaten me as he’d kept throwing questions at me about a girl named Megan.
All I’d managed to figure out was that the girl was his daughter and he clearly blamed me for whatever had happened to her.
But I’d never heard of her before.
The man grabbed my chin. “You’re lucky I promised Clint he could have you,” the man snarled. “He’ll kill you fast.”
He shoved me hard, but I managed to stay upright. “My…my parents,” I mumbled, though my tongue felt thick in my mouth. Nausea had my stomach rolling back and forth, and I prayed I wouldn’t pass out again.
I’d ended up stealing Dominic Barretti’s boat to escape the property.
I’d managed to figure out how to get to the ferry dock only because I’d seen a ferry making its way towards the mainland.
Just before I’d reached land, I’d put the battery back into my watch.
I’d been relieved when the time showed up on the normal-looking dial, but there’d been no way to know if the watch had reconnected with Vincent’s app.
I’d docked the boat in the harbor, certain that I’d run into one of Dom’s or Ronan’s men, but it had been a guy in black jeans and a dark T-shirt that had appeared at my side and pressed a gun between my ribs.
After searching me for a phone and thankfully leaving me with the watch, we’d driven for a good two hours before the car had turned onto a narrow dirt road that had led to some kind of singular building.
Inside had been a few pieces of large machinery.
I’d been led to a back room where a guy with silver hair had been waiting, and I’d barely gotten the question out about my parents before he’d hit me.
I’d lost track of things after the fourth blow.
“Your parents are the least of your concerns,” the man said. “You-”
The man’s words dropped off suddenly when there were a series of loud pops coming from outside the building. The man snagged my arm and dragged me to my feet. To the other man who’d been covering me he said, “Go check it out.”
I was dimly aware of more popping sounds, and I sensed the man behind me getting more and more agitated as he kept turning us around to face the direction of the sounds.
There was enough light from the overhead lights that I could make out more of the inside of the building.
I suspected it was some kind of outbuilding for a farm, because the few pieces of farm equipment inside of the building looked used.
The popping sounds stopped and the man began calling out different names. When the door on the far end of the building opened, he jammed a gun against my temple. “Don’t move,” he warned me.
I wanted to tell him I couldn’t promise anything because I was so dizzy. I tried to focus on the figure at the far end of the building.
Several figures.
I thought it was his men at first, but when the guy yelled, “Stop right there!” I knew they weren’t his guys.
Which meant only one thing.
“Vincent,” I whispered, though I knew there was no way he could have heard me.
Knowing he was here helped clear the fog in my head, and I managed to make him out, along with another man with gray hair. Between them was a third guy. It looked like Vincent and the other guy were holding the third guy up.
“You lose something, Yates?” Vincent called.
I heard the man behind me suck in a breath when Vincent and the other guy released the third guy and he fell to his knees between them and let out a scream of pain.
“Clint!” he shouted. The man’s hold on me eased a little and I felt the hard metal of the gun ease back from my skin. “What did you-”
That was all he got out as I watched Vincent raise his gun in one fluid move.
Warm liquid hit my skin as the man behind me crumpled to the floor.
My knees refused to hold my weight anymore and I unceremoniously fell onto them.
I managed to look over my shoulder at the guy’s lifeless body, blood leeching all over the floor from a gaping hole in the middle of his forehead.
“Nathan, baby,” Vincent called as he reached me. He caught me just as I started to fall over.
“Knew you’d come,” I managed to say as he stroked my face.
“Always,” he whispered, and then his mouth was brushing gently over mine.
That was the last thing I was aware of before I let the darkness claim me.