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I stopped and looked at my oldest friend in the world. “Lead the way.”
I’m coming, Ellie. Hang on.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ellie
“What the fuck!” Ryan was getting more agitated by the second. “Answer the goddamn phone,” he growled, tapping the end button and then re-dialing the same number.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, because he was so on edge that I knew it couldn’t be a good sign for me. I tried to talk sense into him, but he was too dead set on proving himself to his father, that it was no different from talking to a brick wall.
“Maybe he’s asleep,” I offered in hopes that it would calm him.
It didn’t.
“Shut up,” he growled before sending a manic glare in my direction. Ryan dialed again and again, trembling with worry every time his father didn’t answer the phone.
“Have you tried the land line?” Older people still had land lines, right? I realized almost instantly that was the wrong thing to say.
Ryan spun around and took three big steps until his face was level with mine. “Seriously, Ellie. Shut. The fuck. Up.”
I snapped my lips shut. It was a weird place to feel upset since he’d kidnapped me, but Ryan had never spoken to me like that before and it caught me off guard. The version of Ryan I knew was sweet and affable. He tried a little too hard to please his father, but he’d come across as a good guy. He’d put on a good act.
His eyes were full of panic that he couldn’t hide up close. His breath came out short and sharp, his hands vibrated with nervous energy, and the vein in his forehead was perilously close to bursting.
“Thank you,” he growled and stood tall, before he started pacing and calling his father again.
This was it, my final resting spot. I might have entertained morose thoughts before this moment, but now it was all terribly real. My hands tingled knowing I would never hug Leo again, never run my fingers through Diesel’s blond locks. My arms trembled with the eternal emptiness of never experiencing another kind human touch. I would never get to tell Diesel that I loved him, that he owned my heart. My poor baby would never take a breath…
Ryan continued to pace and call, his agitation and panic increasing with every unanswered call. After about the thirtieth attempt, defeat settled in and hung around his broad shoulders like a cloak. “Everything has gone completely to shit now,” I heard him say.
I agreed, but wisely kept my thoughts to myself. Instead, I busied myself with a visual sweep of the room in search of another exit other than the door. I was in a shell of a house and the damp smell of plaster told me the walls had recently been rendered. I couldn’t see any lights through the holes where the windows should have been—but given the lack of noise coming from outside, I had to assume he’d taken me to Steel Heights, and the condos he’d been working on. Was I going to share my sister’s fate and end up in a storm drain? There was no escape for me other than trying to reason with Ryan, who was bordering on irrational.
“Answer the fucking phone!” He tried two more times, and when he didn’t hear anything but his father’s terse voicemail message, he flung the phone across the room, and it shattered against the wall. “Shit!”
My heart pounded in my chest, so hard I could only huff out shallow breaths and so loud that his agonized shouts were muffled. My head throbbed and my vision blurred around the edges, which made me panic. I’m going to die tonight. I knew it now, without a doubt. Ryan wasn’t the brains of the operation, and without orders from his father, he was clueless. Clueless but not unclear about his father’s ultimate goal. To hurt Diesel and the Steel Demons however he could.
Using me.
Tonight was the night that would see the demise of the final Markham woman. At least Mom and Stacy died for a good cause, trying to help victims of human trafficking. I was going to die because of who I was related to, and who I was sleeping with. A snort-laugh escaped at the most inopportune moment possible.
Then again, he couldn’t get any more pissed off, could he?
Ryan whirled around and glared at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Something funny?”
“Yeah, just thinking that my mom and sister died trying to take down dirtbags and I’m going to die because of who I chose to sleep with.”
“Well, that’s what you get for choosing him over me!”
I reeled back at his shout, which was so loud I could hear it pounding along with my heartbeat in a terrifying echo.
“Ryan…” I said after a few seconds, because it just felt so surreal that after everything, this was the sticking point to him. “I-I didn’t even know that you—”
“Yes, you did,” he snapped. “Don’t lie to me or to yourself. You knew I wanted you, Ellie. I did everything right—I was kind to you, we were friends, and still you chose the first big-muscled asshole that came your way instead of me, the man who was always there for you.”
“He’s not just any—he’s Leo’s biological father, Ryan, for crying out loud! It’s complicated, I told you. When he came into my life, he—I thought—ugh, why am I even bothering right now…” It was clear that Ryan was beyond rational thought, but surprisingly, his face completely cleared up, and he cocked his head to the side.
“Oh.” He turned from me, paced towards the door, paused, and then paced back. “So you were just misguidedly trying to make a fake happy little family with the idiot who fathered that boy, because you thought it was the right thing to do?”
