“You should have come to me. It wasn’t your choice to make,” I growled, leaning in his direction. “And because of it, she’s out there. Unprotected.”
My chest felt like it would cave, all while my thoughts ricocheted in my mind, trying to calculate where she could have gone. How she got out of the compound without anyone knowing.
“I’ll personally find her,” Phoenix grated. “Bring her back to you. She couldn’t have gotten far. But you know Dereck needs to die.”
My head shook. It didn’t sit right. None of it. “No, Phoenix…”
I turned to pace, roughing an agitated hand through my hair as I clomped across the floor.
“If it was them? The men who hurt her? You think he’d go back? Work for them? You think Kent would just allow it?”
Bile tingled the back of my throat, my twined, gnarled guts squeezing the life out of me.
“I think…I think Dereck was on his own mission.” The words began to rush. “It’s why he came to us with the intel on Elena. He couldn’t stomach that bullshit any more than we could. He wanted revenge for what they did to his sister.”
The same way as I wanted it for mine. For Elena. For my mother. For that unknown girl tortured on the dingy floor.
“You think Kent knows.” It was a statement, Phoenix’s hands curling into vibrating fists.
Awareness taking hold as we came to the quick conclusion that this entire mission was compromised.
Kent likely had known exactly what was happening the entire time.
Had known my goal was him dead.
“He has to. He’d never let Dereck back in otherwise.”
Dereck was a fool for thinking it.
“Which means he’s fucking waiting for us,” I surmised.
He was the one who’d been biding his time. Pretending. Waiting for his chance to destroy us.
And Brinley…she went to warn Dereck. Thinking she could stop this entire trainwreck.
I felt like I was punched in the face.
My heart ripped from my chest.
Phoenix dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
Offering himself.
A penance for his sins.
His betrayal punishable by death.
“Do it,” he gritted, his eyes squeezed closed.
“Get the fuck off the floor,” I grated. “We have to get my girl.”
I stood in front of a sea of motorcycles and leather cuts, the glinting metal swirling with the threads of the night.
“We’re likely compromised.” I did my best to keep the tremoring from my voice, but I was pretty fucking sure my fear was patent.
Not for myself.
But for Brinley.
