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“I’m going to do that anyway, Raven. But I think it might make it a little more fun if your lady friend watches.”
“No. Not part of the deal.”
“And you think you can make a deal?”
I eye the gun and the taser on his desk. Within a millisecond, I can have one in my hand and on his head. I could kill him right now.
But then I go down for murder.
And I wouldn’t see Katelyn anyway.
No. This only ends one way. With Katelyn going free, and me in the ground.
“I never suspected it of you, Raven. I never thought you would turn on me.”
I say nothing.
“It was the women. The women and the booze. If it weren’t for that woman and the booze, you would’ve never been on that island. You would’ve never gotten caught.”
He’s not wrong. Getting caught on that island, getting shot in the shoulder by Buck, was the best thing that ever happened to me.
It led me to Katelyn.
And Katelyn taught me how to love. Not the obsessive emotion that I thought was love, but real love. She showed me there were good people in the world. People who would do anything for another.
So that’s what I’ll do now.
“I’ll work with you again,” I say. “I’ll be your right-hand man, and you never have to worry about me turning. If you just let her go.”
“You must think I was born yesterday, Raven.”
“Hell no, I don’t think you were born yesterday. But my word is good.”
“You’re forgetting that you gave me your word once before. Then you reneged on it the first time you had a chance.”
“I did. I was facing life in prison. What would you have done?”
“I’ve turned on everyone,” he says, “but we’re not talking about me.”
“You turned tail and ran to Mexico.”
“I did. Or at least I made people think I did.”
“Then you of all people ought to understand what I did.”
“Did I say I didn’t understand? I’m in this for myself as much as you are. Your only problem is that I have a hell of a lot more power than you do.”
He’s not wrong.
But I have something he doesn’t. Someone worth dying for.
Two men enter the room then, force me down on a chair. Duct tape my arms to the arms of the chair and my feet to its legs.
King comes toward me then, brandishing what looks like a Swiss Army knife. “We’re going to see just how strong you are for this woman, Raven.” He walks toward me, cuts my shirt off me deftly with his knife.
And he finds my brand-new tattoo.
“Nice. Even had yourself branded with her name. I guess I never thought you had it in you.”
“What? To love someone?”
“Yeah. What happened to the Lucifer Raven who was cold as ice? Whose only idea of love was control and obsession?”
“Anyone can change,” I say. “I’m proof of that.”
“I heard you got off the sauce.”
“I did.”
“That’s a shame. Nothing to dull your pain.”
I inhale, let the breath out slowly. “I can take anything you dish out. Anything. I ask only that Katelyn stay safe.”
“We’ll see how much you can take.” King curls his lips into his trademark serpentine smile.
I don’t react. Just meet his gaze, stare him down. Show him my strength. The strength of my love for Katelyn. Harness my old and untrustworthy friend.
Nothing happens for the next few moments.
Finally, I say, “Get with it, will you?”
“We’re waiting for a special guest.”
My heart falls.
And then the door opens, and I don’t have to turn my head over my shoulder to know who it is.
“Katelyn,” I murmur.
She didn’t get away.
52
KATELYN
“Luke!”
He doesn’t turn his head, but I know it’s him. His arms and legs are taped to a chair. The two goons holding me throw me into the chair next to him.
I wait for them to tie me or duct-tape me, but they don’t.
Before I have the chance to wonder why, the other man in the room—large and menacing—smiles at me.
“I can see why you’re so taken with her, Raven.”
“Let her go,” Luke says, his jaw clenched.
“I don’t think I will,” the man says.
“It’s okay, Luke,” I say, trying to sound a lot calmer than I feel.
I want him to know. Want him to know that I want to be here with him more than I want to be anywhere else in the world.
That if I have to leave this life, I want to leave it with him.
“She has nothing to do with what you think I did to you. She’s been through hell, damn it, please. Let her go, King.”
King? The guy’s name is King?
Two guns sit on the desk. My wrists are no longer bound, though my skin is raw where the duct tape was. I’m bruised and battered, and of course they took the gun Buck gave me, but I will fight. I will fight for Luke.
