Page 9 of Savage Surrender

“I need privacy.”

Winston’s face blanks, until I grab a plastic sandwich bag from a shelf and put the phone in it. Then the horror registers.

“That is...” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to know.”

“It’s not my first rodeo, big brother.”

He wraps both arms around me, and I hug him hard, pressing my cheek to his shoulder.

“Don’t make this weird. And, Win, I need you to stop.”

“Stop?”

I pull back. “Stop getting involved. The accident wasn’t that long ago. You have a baby coming... Clara needs you alive and in one piece.” I squeeze his arms. “You’ve done enough. This is enough.”

“I’m being careful, B, but I’m not going to sit on my ass and do nothing.”

Winston leaves, and I bag the phone and stuff it in my underwear, tucking it as high and close against me as I can. Fucking ouch. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the best I can do on short notice.

Through the front window, a second SUV has pulled in behind Ellis’s. Backup.

Out at the SUV, a guard gestures for me to get in while another tightens a new zip tie around Weller’s wrists and then attaches them to the oh-shit handle above the door with a second zip tie.

As the streets pass by—people eating behind lit windows, kids playing basketball, a girl walking her dog—I picture my hands around Montgomery’s throat, squeezing, while his face goes red, purple, wrong... or right, depending on how you look at it. I want him to feel it—the helplessness, the waiting, someone else deciding whether he gets one more breath. The fantasy stays so clear that my pulse never rises on the drive back.

3

OWEN

The collar catches against my throat every time I swallow.

For ninety minutes, the bond has been dead air. Nothing from Bianca but static, like someone tuned my head to an empty frequency and broke off the dial.

Tristan sits with his head against the wall and his eyes closed. One hand clamps around the opposite wrist, keeping both of them pinned in his lap. Freddie paces across the foyer, back and forth over the same strip of expensive rug, wearing a path into it like a caged animal.

I stay still because the alternative is breaking everything in the room.

Where the fuck is she?

Every answer my brain gives me leads back to Montgomery. He took her somewhere to run another experiment. They drugged Weller so he couldn’t protect her. They’re hurting her, and I’m trapped here with a collar around my neck, unable to do a fucking thing.

A growl builds until my chest hurts. I grab the nearest lamp and smash it against the floor. Porcelain explodes across the marble.

Tristan opens his eyes. Four pale fingerprints remain pressed into his wrist after he lets go. Freddie can pace, and Tristan can sit there pretending to be civilized. My nervous energy has teeth.

At least the cut on Freddie’s cheek has stopped bleeding. One of those fuckhead guards hit him when they forced us into the SUV. Then warmth presses into the bond, and my head snaps up. Tristan and Freddie feel it at the same time. All three of us move to the window overlooking the drive.

We wait there without speaking. The connection strengthens by the second, pulling tight inside my chest. Bianca is close. She’s alive, and she’s furious. An SUV turns into the driveway.

Weller climbs out first, followed by Bianca. She’s locked down so hard her anger has become its own kind of stillness, but she’s standing. She’s whole. I drag in my first complete breath in ninety minutes.

Weller’s hands are zip-tied in front of him, black plastic cutting into his wrists. His suit is wrinkled, and his mouth is pressed into the hard line that means his control is one bad moment from snapping. The front door opens, and she’s here.

Her scent hits me - warm and sweet beneath all that anger - and makes me dizzy with a need to be close. We crowd, everyone talking over each other and trying to touch her.

Bianca’s gaze moves across the new collars around Freddie’s and Tristan’s throats, then finds their injuries. Her eyes widen. “What did they do to you?” Her voice is low, deadly. My girl definitely wants to fuck someone up.

She’s so fucking hot, and I’m enough of an asshole to think it while she’s staring at the blood one of the guards drew from us.