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I don’t know how long I stood there, fighting for calm.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
My stomach growled, bringing me back to myself. I laughed—an unhinged, horror-movie kind of laugh—and found my way to a wall, where I slid to the floor, legs crossed yoga-style.
“Okay,” I said, speaking aloud because the silence was getting to me, “let’s eat. You’ll feel better with some food in you.”
Esposito had brought me a meatball sub. It was still warm and smelled like heaven. I moaned in pleasure as I bit into a fat, juicy ball of ground meat smothered in cheese and tomato sauce.
I wanted to cram the whole thing into my mouth, but I made myself eat slowly, making it last. I briefly considered saving half for later but decided I should fill my belly while I could. When I was finished, I licked my fingers clean, folded the foil wrap and placed it on the floor beside me.
How much time had passed? I wasn’t even sure whether it was day or night.
I finished the water and curled up on the hard dirt, my head on my arm. I was drifting off when my eyes popped open.
Esposito hadn’t seemed surprised that I was Talon’s thrall. He’d known it already, known I was carrying Talon’s baby.
I swallowed, surer than ever that he was Talon’s dad.
Jesus Murphy. What kind of man would do something like this to his own son?
I shivered and curled tighter into myself.
32
Talon
My phone was in my hand before my eyes were fully open. I sat up, swinging my feet to the floor as I pulled up Eden’s message. A short video loaded.
Eden stared unsmiling into the camera in a dark room, eyes big in her face. “We want Twilight. You’ll be contacted telling you where and when. And Talon? Bring her yourself, and do not tell anyone. That means Brien and Cain, too.” She took a jagged breath. “We—we’ll be watching.”
Her gaze moved off-camera. Then the phone was taken from her and the video cut off.
My blood pounded in my ears, slow and heavy. For a second—but only a second—I wondered if she’d betrayed me. Again.
But it didn’t ring true. I replayed the video, this time focusing on nuances.
“We want Twilight.” Someone had made Eden say that.
Her tone had been so flat, not like her at all. I didn’t believe for a second that she was involved in a plot to kidnap or stake Twilight.
Eden loved me. I hadn’t needed Cain to tell me. She’d made herself vulnerable to me, over and over again. Every time we were together, her love had radiated from her, bathing me in its warmth. I’d told myself it was only the afterglow from good sex, but that was me lying to myself. So, yeah, I’d known she loved me even before she’d left the first time, but I’d pretended I didn’t because then I’d have to deal with it. Gods, I was a coward.
Eden would never have left like this, which meant she’d been forced to make that video. Her kidnapper or kidnappers wanted me to believe that she was involved.
A muscle worked in my jaw. The only conclusion was that someone on the inside was part of this. Someone who’d known Eden had betrayed the syndicate once.
Hell, they’d told me that straight out.
“We’ll be watching.”
A second message popped up, also from Eden’s phone. A crude map of a small, unnamed island about ten kilometers northwest, accompanied by additional instructions.
Leave T on the shore. You have until dawn or else your woman and spawn will be forfeited.
An X marked a narrow inlet on the island’s west side.
Fear clawed at my chest. I stared at the cracked screen for long seconds after it went black, torn between my loyalty to Brien and the need to rescue Eden whatever the cost.
