The moment I confirmed he works for Lorell, I knew there would be no negotiating, no finding a weakness or way to talk this man out of whatever he came up here to do.
All I have are my wits and words, and I don’t see either getting me very far in my current predicament.
I scowl at him as he sits on the bed I shared with Connor, casually leaning back with my gun resting on the mattress beside him. As furious as I am for what he’s doing, it’s his easy grin that pisses me off the most. The fact that he keeps cracking jokes and acting like this is normal to be holding someone hostage.
He glances around the small space, releasing an unimpressed sigh. “So, this is really where you’ve been holed up, huh? Not much to look at, is it?”
“Are these the thrilling questions you came up here to ask, asshole?”
My captor smirks. “You’ve got quite a mouth on you.”
A flash of Connor’s cock shoved down my throat, and his statement about wanting to shut me up flash through my head, and I squeeze my eyes closed, fighting the rise of bile at the thought of what this man might do to me if I don’t stop with the attitude.
I swallow thickly. “I’ve been told something similar a time or two…”
He pushes up and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and I can’t help but look at his huge hands. There isn’t a single doubt in my head that those hands have killed people before. Someone doesn’t so casually hike into the remote Blue Ridge Mountains to hunt down someone like me just to “chat.”
This man gets what he wants through violence.
And all of that focus is on me.
“So”—he flashes a grin that doesn’t reach his hard eyes—“we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
I flinch at the familiar words Connor said to me. “I’m not sure what this is, or what you’re even here for.”
“You want to do it the hard way, then.” He raises a brow and tsks. “I would’ve thought you were smarter than that, given your track record, but”—he shrugs—“then again, if you were smart, you would have left the Lorells alone.”
My back stiffens, and I do my best not to show any sort of other physical reaction, but his gaze narrows on me, his grin growing.
“There we go. Let’s stop the bullshit and pretending we don’t both know exactly why I’m here or why you’re tied up like that.” He points to me with the gun I know is loaded. “You made an agreement with the Lorells, and you have not honored it.”
I scowl at him. “The fact that you’re here and the fact they even know that proves they haven’t upheld their end, either. They’ve been watching us, just like I thought. Watching me. Probably with every intent of taking us out whenever they had the opportunity of making it look like an accident so as not to draw the attention of our friends in the FBI.”
That devious smirk returns. “We wouldn’t be very good at our jobs if we weren’t keeping our enemies in sight, would we?”
I don’t respond to his questions, because it’s really more of a threat, anyway. A reminder that they have eyes on Willow, Lucky, Killian, and Liam, along with anyone else connected to what happened on the homestead. They probably have since the moment the FBI left the mountain.
And since I have now been able to confirm they actually have people they’ve paid off within the bureau itself, it’s even possible they may have discovered what I’ve been doing through my calls to Michaelson.
If he’s been writing things down, keeping records of our calls or anything I’ve told him, they would have had definitive proof I was working on the story.
“You’ve been a busy bee.” He shakes his head and tsks again. “Buzzing around where you don’t belong. Siphoning sweet bits of information from people and bringing it home to your hive.”
The analogy and tie to Willow’s business isn’t by chance, just another opportunity for him to ensure I know what he does.
He knows I spend all my time with Willow and Lucky.
They’re the hive he’s referring to, which means he probably thinks they’ve been privy to all the information I’ve gathered.
“No one else knows anything.”
His eyes widen, a cruel smile spreading across his face. “I’m sure you’d love for me to believe that, but I, of course, need to ensure there aren’t any loose ends. So far, we’ve only been able to find one of your sources.”
Shit.
My breath hitches, and he raises a dark brow.
“Are you curious which one?” That devious smirk makes another appearance, and I’m beginning to suspect he does it intentionally to unnerve people. “You’re the one who led us right to him.”
