“You sure?”
“The girls have got me.” She looks over her shoulder, where Reagan and Luna nod assurances.
“Stay inside. I’m sending a few guys out now to watch the neighborhood.”
She nods, biting her lower lip and turning away.
Steel waits until the girls are gone before turning to me. “Tanner is heading to the clubhouse. He figured out where they’re holding Emery and Charlie. The good news is that they’re still with the Feds.”
“The bad news?”
“They’re still with the Feds.”
“Fuck.” I drag my hand down my face.
“Tanner has some ideas, but we’re going to have to wait and hear him out. If they don’t let her go willingly, it’s going to get messy.”
“Then we figure it out, or I’m storming that damn building.”
I’m not the kind of man who deserves two people as wonderful as Emery and Charlie. But now that I have them, I’m not letting them go. Even if it means I need to go down in order to make that happen.
21
Emery
My uncle’s steel eyestrack me as I’m led into an interrogation room. While he has the influence to demand an office or someplace more comfortable to speak to me, he didn’t. This isn’t meant to be comforting for me. It’s a statement.
A sterile space with four bare walls and a metal table at the center.
Uncle Rick’s mostly gray hair is as neatly trimmed as his beard. Not one wrinkle mars his ridiculously expensive blue suit. Even here in this room, his very presence bleeds money.
The agent clicks the door shut behind me, not bothering to come inside himself as my uncle leans back in his chair. His eyes drift in a slow perusal of disappointment as he takes me in. When I was under his care, I was never allowed to wear something as simple as a T-shirt and jeans, like I’m wearing now.
The incessant tapping of his shoe on the linoleum has my insides swimming as I take a seat across the table from him.
Was there ever a time I thought that cold look in his eyes meant he loved me? Now, all I see is a monster in the flesh assessing his prey. A man with no heart and no mercy. A man who treated me like a girl who owed him for all he’d done for me.
“I’m waiting.” He smirks, watching me coolly.
“For what?”
“For you to thank me.” Uncle Rick’s smile grows, knowing damn well I have nothing to thank him for. “You made quite a mess slipping away like that, Emery. You got quite a few people killed for your mistake.”
I glance up at the camera in the corner of the room.
“They can’t hear anything I don’t want them to.” My uncle leans forward, resting his forearms on the table.
My throat tightens. I’m sitting in the middle of a federal facility, and there’s still no escaping him. No chance he’ll finally have to answer for his sins.
Tears sting my eyes as I consider all the pain I’ve caused. I was selfish to think only of myself the night I slipped away. I don’t doubt he killed every single member of his staff I snuck past.
But what was I supposed to do?
Stay?
He would have sold me to Eli, then what would have happened to Charlie?
“Where is my daughter?” It takes all my composure to settle the shakiness of my tone.
