CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Fallon
AN INDISCERNIBLE SOUND POUNDED AGAINST MY SKULL, pushing me toward consciousness. My eyelids fluttered, light making its way through in short bursts that had a groan slipping from my lips. The sound I heard intensified. Not a moan. More of a muffled yell.
My eyelids fluttered earnestly as I struggled to take in my surroundings. Nothing about the place was familiar. Old, flimsy walls I guessed had once been white were now yellowed with age, and the seams told me it was an older manufactured home or trailer.
Windows were covered with tinfoil, making it impossible to see in or out. But flowery curtains that looked straight out of the eighties framed them. My frown deepened, making the ache in my head worse as I turned.
And that’s when I saw her. A woman screaming through some sort of bandana gag. One I knew.
“Renee?” I croaked.
She kept right on screaming as if it would do something.
I tried to lift a hand to get her to stop and realized my predicament. My wrists and ankles were bound to a chair. One of those metal ones with a padded seat lined in plastic so nothing would stain it—another thing straight out of the eighties.
Renee’s muffled screams got louder.
“Stop,” I barked, the word half-command, half-plea. But it silenced the woman opposite me. “Just give me a second.” My breaths came in quick pants as I tried to orient myself.
Someone had placed us between the living room and the kitchen. Both those rooms looked straight out of the eighties, too. The couch was one of those autumn velvet deals with plenty of indiscernible stains that turned my stomach. And the TV opposite it was a tubed one framed in wood.
The kitchen also had that aged wooden look, with peeling and stained Formica countertops. But despite that, the place was as neat as if a drill sergeant was in residence. Like the house had been frozen in time. Which made no sense.
I looked for signs indicating who might live here and then saw the portrait—one of those you used to be able to get at the mall. He was only about eight in the picture, somewhere between Gracie’s and Clem’s age, but I would’ve recognized Kye anywhere. That dark hair and those amber eyes.
But there was no off-kilter smile I loved.
And his whole body was stiff. I could see why.
The man sitting behind him was squeezing his shoulder, and I instantly saw the evil in Rex Blackwood’s eyes.
Renee, on the other hand, looked out of it.
Her eyes were a bit glassy and vacant. She was likely high on something.
“This was your house?” I rasped. Whatever the asshole had drugged me with had made my throat scratchy again.
Renee nodded, her eyes red and tear-filled.
“Do you still own it?” I tried to pull the pieces together, but Renee holding on to a house she could have sold for drug money or whatever else she fancied didn’t seem logical.
She shook her head.
“Did you sell it?”
Another no.
“Did the bank foreclose on it?”
She nodded.
So, either the bank had turned around and sold it with everything inside, or someone was squatting.
“Did you see who took us?” I asked.
Renee nodded frantically, her eyes going wide.
“Do you know them?” I pressed.
Her mouth flattened as if she were trying to think, but then she shook her head.
So, no one who’d been involved in her and Rex’s life back then. It had to be about the fight ring.
I tested the bindings on my wrists and ankles. They were so tight the plastic was cutting into my skin in places. Whoever this was, they didn’t give a damn if I got hurt—not that the lack of care was a big shock.
Stilling for a moment, I really listened. It didn’t sound like anyone else was around. With the windows covered, it would be hard to tell if anyone was close enough to hear me if I screamed or if it would just alert our kidnapper.
I looked back at Renee. “Are there any other houses around here? Anyone who could hear me if I yelled?”
Her amber-brown eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head.
Damn. I tugged at my bindings again, harder this time. All I managed to do was hurt my wrists. “Can you use your teeth to tear the bandana?”
I wasn’t sure what Renee’s ability to speak would accomplish, but at least we could try to come up with a plan.
She frowned around her gag but started working it with her teeth as I gazed around the room. There was a front door and a side one. Thankfully, I could easily see both and know if someone entered. And then I saw something else.
Cameras.
The kind you could get to watch your pet while you were gone. One moved, turning my blood to ice. Rhodes had gotten one of them to keep an eye on her dog, Biscuit, and I knew you could hear the people in the room, too.
I dipped my head, hoping the person watching the feed couldn’t read lips. “There are cameras,” I whispered.
Renee stilled.
“Keep working on your bandana,” I hissed low.
She nodded but trembled as she did. She caught the fabric with her teeth, getting in a good tear and sending half the gag falling down. Enough so she could speak. “He’s going to kill us.”
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“I-I … he’s got tattoos, and he’s mean. He—”
The front door swung open and hit the wall. Hard. “Mean? I’m not mean. I’m delivering justice.”
I struggled to pull the pieces together in my mind. I recognized the person standing in the doorway, but I also didn’t. There was a look of rage in those hazel eyes I’d never seen before.
“Evan?” I croaked.