CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
Still staring into my eyes, he shakes his head.
“No. I took you for them. For the people who have my sister and said they’d give her back to me if I gave them you.
So I drugged you last night, put you in my truck, and brought you to that warehouse ’cause they told me to.
I tied you up and served you on a silver platter because I wanted them to think I’d play their game. ”
“G-game?”
He dips his chin, his eyes piercing. “They changed plans at the last second. Said I needed to make the drop first, leave you there. And then go to a different location, where Lynnie would be waitin’ for me.”
“But you… you didn’t leave me there. You didn’t go get your sister.”
His jaw clenches. “’Cause I knew I wouldn’t find her there.”
“I don’t…” I shake my head. “I don’t understand. Why not? You took me for them. You did what they asked you to do. So I don’t—”
“They had no intention of givin’ my sister back,” he says, cutting me off. “’Cause they had no intention of playin’ fair. And I knew it.”
My heart’s pounding in my chest, banging against my rib cage. “How?”
His eyes flash again and I get a glimpse of that cold-blooded killer from the warehouse. “’Cause I wouldn’t.” Then, “A good hunter never gives up his best play. He holds on to it, right until the end so he gets the real prize, the one he’s been playin’ this game for all along.”
I study him for a few seconds until I finally realize what he’s saying. “So you… you never planned on giving me to them?”
A savage expression washes through his face, savage and so possessive it makes my breaths stop. “Fuck no. Just wanted them to think I would. So I could draw ’em out, turn this game on its head.”
Draw them out. So the warehouse was a trap, and he used me as bait. Something that I did only a few weeks ago, even though it feels like a lifetime now. I wanted to draw him out, so I hooked the bait and set the trap. Only I had no idea what I was doing. Unlike him.
“Is that why…” I breathe out and, at last, glance over to his shoulder, and there it is. A bandage peeking through his shirt. “Is that why you dove in front of me when they tried to ki—”
He growls.
And it feels like the first night. When he did the same thing when I was about to utter the word “rape.” He stopped me because he didn’t want me to even say it. Like he doesn’t want me to say kill. Only this time he’s so against it that he also bares his teeth like he really is a vicious animal.
“Ever since I got that message, my only thought has been to get my little sister back,” he says, and I focus on him.
“That’s all I wanted, to get her home. To bring her back to where she belongs, with her family, with me.
And I didn’t care what I had to do, who I had to use to save her.
Save her like I should’ve when we were just kids.
The fact that I had to use you, Hank Turner’s daughter, the man responsible for every wretched thing in my life, felt like a perfect revenge. ”
He swallows, his eyes molten and penetrating.
“Told myself I was choosin’ my family, honorin’ my dead parents, doin’ the right thing.
But if it was the right thing, why did it feel so wrong?
Why did it feel so fuckin’ hard to do? To look you in the eye and break your trust again when you came to me so fuckin’ sweetly last night.
To take you. Again. Tie you up; leave you for them to find.
Even though I was there, only twenty feet away, it felt like someone was rippin’ my insides apart, watchin’ you look so scared.
So brave, too, like you woulda taken ’em all alone if need be.
It felt like I was in that car again, the glass in my face.
And then they came and fuckin’ looked at you, looked at my Princess, and… ”
He breathes through his nose, swallows again, and I know words are failing him once more.
And I’m this close to abandoning all my self-preservation and flying over to him.
I’m this freaking close to throwing my arms around him and telling him it’s okay, he doesn’t have to talk.
I get it. I get why he did everything. I would’ve done the same if someone I loved was in need of saving.
“You already know what I’m capable of,” he at last resumes.
“You know all the things I’ve done. For you, to you.
All the ways I’ve hurt you, used you, fuckin’ traumatized you.
You’ve got no reason to believe anythin’ I say.
But if there’s one thing I’ve done right in my godforsaken life, it’s to keep a promise. So I’m gonna make you one.”
An intense emotion passes through his face, and it makes my heart race and my belly thrum. It makes me curl my toes and clutch the sheet tightly.
“I promise they’ll know it too. Before this is over, they’ll know what I’m capable of.
They’ll know I’m the best goddamn hunter in these mountains.
But I don’t just hunt. I don’t just track and stalk my prey; I also kill it.
I also fuckin’ torture it, play with it, and then tear it limb from limb.
And that’s what I’m gonna do to ’em. I’m gonna erase their very existence from this planet.
For tryna hurt you on my watch. For even thinkin’ that I’d let it happen, that I’d let ’em touch a single hair on your head without takin’ down their whole fuckin’ species. ”