76. Jace
Chapter 76
Jace
B arreling up the muddy road leading to the house was like riding a roller coaster in the dark. I couldn’t see a fucking thing from the passenger seat, the darkness and rain obscuring everything as Benji bounced over the muddy terrain, Wolf wrestling with the wheel as he drove like a bat out of hell.
We were so close I had to resist the urge to fling the open the door, race to the house in the rain. It wouldn’t be faster but after two helpless fucking hours in the car, I wanted to move .
I needed to get to Daisy. Because now the pieces were coming together. Piers Cantwell was Michael White. He’d returned to Blackwell Falls on some twisted fucking mission to traffic local girls through Mo’s, which seemed to be one stop on a fucked-up underground railroad of trafficked girls that led to the Velvet Rope.
I thought about the cities I’d seen on the flight plans in the back office, wondered if — and how — they tied into the whole thing.
Then Wolf was turning the last corner leading to the house and my brain tried to process everything it was seeing: the front door wide open in the torrential downpour, firelight and candles flickering from inside the living room, four figures sprinting down the porch steps.
“Get the guns,” Wolf said.
“On it,” I said, already reaching under my seat.
I removed the two revolvers we kept there for emergencies. There were two more under Wolf’s seat and a shotgun under the back, but I didn’t want to waste time waiting when we were facing down a team of four leaving the house.
It wasn’t until I was out of the car — Benji hadn’t even some to a complete stop — that I realized I was pointing my gun at Otis, Rafe, and the two other guys who’d helped us get Daisy out of the dam complex when she’d been kidnapped by Calvin.
“Lower that fucking gun!” Rafe bellowed.
“Where is she?” I had to shout to be heard over the rain and wind. It was fucking relentless, Wolf and I already soaked to the skin.
It was the only question that mattered, although I definitely wanted to know later why Otis’ leg was bleeding, a tourniquet that looked like one of our dish towels knotted around his thigh.
“Don’t know,” Otis said. “We heard shouting from the kitchen.”
Wolf looked down at the mud and I watched as he followed a series of footprints to the side of the house.
He waved us forward. “This way!”