Page 46 of Payback

“I know,” he said in a soft, soothing tone. “But hitting Charlotte isn’t the answer.”

Her eyes roved over the pair. “You’re a couple.” Wonder filled her voice. “Those pictures weren’t a drunken one-off. You love each other!”

“Don’t change the subject.” I kicked her in the shin, making her shriek. “Where’s Mr. Carbuncle hiding?”

She clamped her lips together.

“Right.” I slammed my fist into my palm. “When I’ve finished with you, someone else will have to pay for a new nose job, because you’ll look like Coates.”

Edward placed a hand on my arm. “Emil—”

“Don’t stop me.” I shook him off. “If Fredrickson hadn’t been there with the gun, Mr. Carbuncle would have raped and murdered me by now.”

His hand dropped away. Because he knew I was right.

The limo sped along the freeway, and the roar of the air conditioning matched the roar of blood between my ears. Charlotte was the queen of setting people up. If she had done it to her brother, I had no doubt that she was the driver behind Mr. Carbuncle’s latest attack. If she didn’t give us something, I would take out all my anger on her face and see how Rudolph liked her the next time he wanted an online booty call.

Ducking her head, Charlotte clapped both hands over her nose. “I don’t know where he is,” she wailed. “I swear on my brother’s life.”

“Considering you got him embroiled in an abduction plot where he would take the fall, I doubt that you value his anything,” muttered Blake.

She raised her head to reveal tear-streaked, hazel eyes. “He lives with his mother in Estermere village. A-a-and I have his number.”

“Where’s his basement?” I pictured an abandoned bunker, deep underground. The type psychopaths and serial killers converted into their lairs.

“At his mother’s house,” she snapped. “Where else?”

Leaning forward, Edward held out his hand. “I suggest you give me Mr. Carbuncle’s phone number and his mother’s address.”

Charlotte reached into the pocket of her blazer and then hesitated.

“It looks like you want the National Health Service to perform your facial reconstructive surgery,” Blake muttered.

With a pout, Charlotte pulled out her smartphone. “I suppose you want his mother’s phone number, too?”

“I’ll take it myself,” said Edward.

She handed it to Edward.

“Security code?”

“Six-six-sixty-nine.”

“Typical,” muttered Blake.

Edward tapped the security code and texted the numbers onto his own phone. After pressing the home button, he swiped through the screens and looked through her apps. “Is that all the information you have on Carbuncle?”

“Yes.”

Blake sneered. “Where do you meet him to get your pussy licked?”

“Blake!” she screeched.

“You have to be getting it somewhere.”

Her face twisted with faux-disgust. “Like you’re getting it from Henry?”

He smirked. “And Emilia.”