“You’re right. Saying that won’t stop me. I have to save the girls.”
“Please be careful. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.” He was admitting to so much right now.
The line was silent. The timer on the dash indicated the call was still connected. “Sam?”
“Liam.” Sam’s voice was filled with emotion. “I…I…feel the same. But we can’t lose the girls. I’ll be careful. You just get here.”
TWENTY-THREE
Liam’s words bounced around in her mind.I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.
So much said in so few words. And she’d just admitted she felt the same way.
This man had come in and upended her whole life. Challenging everything she thought she knew and everything she thought she wanted. She’d let him in, and now she wanted things she’d never thought possible.
But right now, Isabella and Sophia needed her, and she was going to do everything she could to get them out safely.
It had been a stroke of luck that a Renegade Rides vehicle was in the hospital parking lot when she walked out. Now she was standing in the dark, abandoned parking lot at the industrial park.
She walked across the lot and toward the slaughterhouse. Graffiti covered the building, windows were boarded up, and overgrown weeds pushed up the side of the building. It hadn’t been operational in decades, but she could still smell the metallic scent of blood. A shiver raced down her side.
How was she going to be able to stall until help could get here? The risk of losing the girls was far too great to just stand here and do nothing. Enough she felt the urge to pray.
Suddenly, something hard was shoved into the back of her head. “Don’t move.”
Nausea filled her stomach and her vision blurred. It couldn’t be. She knew that voice. Knew that the hard thing was the barrel of a gun pointed at her skull.
She knew who had taken the girls.
“Why, Dean?”
“We’re going to walk up to that door, and you’re going to toss your phone inside. Do you understand?” Dean said from behind her.
She gasped. “Why did you do this?”
He shoved the gun farther into her skull, causing pain to radiate through the cut.
“Where are the girls?”
“You think you have the upper hand here, but you don’t. I know it’s only a matter of time before your boyfriend shows up. So you can either die here in the parking lot, and I’ll take care of the girls, or you can do as you’re told, quickly, and be with them.”
“Okay.” She’d known going into this that the odds they all made it out of this alive were slim to none, but she had to try. She’d give her life as long as Isabella and Sophia lived. “Don’t hurt them.”
Her heart ached at the thought of her sister being alone in the world, but that was so much better than being dead. She marched forward.
“Good. Now open the door,” Dean barked.
She pushed open the rusted metal door to gaping darkness. The pungent smell of gasoline assaulted her nose.
“Now. Throw your phone inside.”
Her hand shook. The phone clattered across the floor. The flick of a lighter sounded behind her.
“No!” She spun around just as Dean tossed a metal flip-top lighter to the ground.
Fire whooshed to life, following a trail through the entryway and deep into the building. Toward where he said he’d stashed the girls.
Sam cried out.
