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“Stop. The. Car,” I demand.
Quinn utters a curse as he pulls onto the side of the highway. He doesn’t bother putting the car in Park as he gives me his full attention. “What’s wrong?”
I lick my lips, my mouth desperate for liquid. “You can’t take me to a hospital,” I say, latching onto his hand. I squeeze as the pressure builds into a painful ache, and he lets me. I close my eyes for a few seconds until it ebbs. Then I release a slow breath. “Please, Quinn. I’m begging you. The thought of some doctor running tests…it’s humiliating.”
Confusion mars his face. “Then tell me, Avery. Make me understand.”
I want to die. I want to curl into myself and just die. The realization of what I’ve created for those monstrous devils hits me with sickening force as a wave of ecstasy crashes over me.
“Oh, shit…” I breathe through a sharp spasm. Then I look into his eyes, anticipating judgment in his hazel gaze. But they only see me, reflecting none of the revulsion I feel. “I’m not sick, and I’m not overdosing. The cocktail I made? The aphrodisiac?” He nods his understanding. “Multiply that by a thousand, and that is what’s coursing through my system right now.”
A fierce gleam lights his eyes. A range of emotions—from sympathy to rage—wars within their depths. But I don’t wait for the questions to come. I know he wants answers, but right now, I’m desperate to get somewhere safe and secluded.
“So please,” I say, evoking as much commiseration in my voice as possible. “The last place I need to be is a hospital bed.”
“Fuck,” he bites out. He glances in the rearview mirror, then steers the car back onto the road. After he makes a U-turn in a strictly no U-turn lane, he says, “You’re going to give me answers.”
“I will,” I say, pressing down into the seat to ease the mounting throb. “I’m going to help you get these bastards. But you need to get me through this first.”
Another sharp curse fills the car, and the busted skin around Quinn’s knuckles turns white as his grip tightens on the wheel.
12
Purgatory
Quinn
Sadie’s not happy. Not one bit. But mother fuck, what can I do?
Avery has to know what’s best. She’s the brains of this operation. I have to trust that if she thought her life was in danger, she’d say so.
Trust.
That word batters my brain as I take the scolding from Sadie.
“After everything she’s been through, Quinn. You need to man-up and make the right call for her.”
Sadie’s words make my jaw lock tight, my back teeth grinding down so hard I fear I’ll crack a tooth. This job is going to put dentures in my head before I’m fifty. “Fucking hell. She’s not a child. This is Avery we’re talking about.”
“I know,” Sadie says.
“Then don’t you think she knows what she’s doing?”
A beat, then: “Okay. You’re right.”
Mother of mercy. I can’t believe it. “Listen. I got Avery, so I need you focused on the perps. Wherever she was held, Avery said there was another woman there, and there could be more. Use Carson. Let him work them over, then you bring in the big guns. We need names and locations. Fire off all the charges—”
“Quinn, they’ve lawyered up. Right off the rip, they asked for some swanky lawyer named Maddox.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. Mostly from hearing the name of the lawyer I’ve been investigating, but also to stop the sight of Avery undulating on the couch.
I turn toward the window. “I need you to get ahead of this. Maddox is dirty.”
“Name me a lawyer who’s not,” she says.
We’re on the same page there. “But he’s connected to the first vic somehow. Theory is, she was a working girl. And if Maddox is representing our perps, he may know the whos and wheres. Get to him. Get those perps talking.”
“You’re asking me to be on this case?”
