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“After what you just did to Alex, you may just stay in this house until next August. You are chosen, just like your sister,” he sneered.
I tried to break his grip on my wrist, and he grabbed my other arm with his free hand. I struggled against his painful hold before I was suddenly free. Spinning around, I watched Jamie throw him to the floor. He jumped on top of Eric and started punching him in the face. Over and over.
“Jamie. Come on.” I attempted to pull him off. “Before the others come. Please. We need to go.”
My words caused him to stop. “You’re right. They all need to pay for what happened to Lacey.”
I reached for the door that led into the room where Eric had kicked my knife, but it was locked, and I hit my fists on the door in frustration. Then I remembered what Geo said. Alex had a set of keys too. I glanced across the room at Alex, who was on the floor, holding his hands to his wound.
“Alex should have keys on him. For the doors,” I told Jamie.
Jamie got off Eric, and I could barely recognize the unconscious man. There was so much blood on his face, it was impossible to tell if he was still breathing. We crossed the room, and Jamie got to Alex first.
“Where are your keys?” Jamie spat.
Alex ignored him, and I crouched down next to him. Without saying a word, I ran my hands over his pockets until I felt a key and slid my hand into his pocket. As I pulled it out, Alex grabbed my arm.
“Sage, I did this for you. I love you.”
Pain and hurt were all over his face, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the knife wound or my betrayal. His words did nothing. All I felt for him was pure hatred. I had nothing to say to him, and I didn’t have to worry about it because Jamie brought up his knee and kicked Alex in the face, knocking him unconscious.
“Let’s go. We need to get to the police. Do you have the truck keys?”
I nodded as I felt for the keys in my pocket to make sure they were still there. We ran through the study and back into the kitchen. We got to the door, and I tried to fit the key into the lock. But it didn’t work. Had Geo lied? I didn’t think so. They had both been so confident that I couldn’t get those keys from him when we were upstairs that he hadn’t cared if he told me the way to get out. But his key ring had three keys. Alex only had one.
“Maybe it opens the front,” I muttered halfheartedly. My hope of getting out of here was all but gone. It seemed impossible that it was still dark outside. It felt like I had been in this house, running and hiding for days. We sprinted through the dining room and burst into the foyer, only to stop in our tracks.
My eyes went to his birthmark before I made eye contact with Niko and the other two men who were blocking our way to the front door. Each one was holding a big bottle of some type of rum as Niko stared straight at me. I searched the room, wondering where Geo was.
One of the men was Detective Thomas. I glared at him before looking at the front door. We were so close—only about fifteen feet away from freedom. Niko appeared amused, but that changed when his eyes grazed my body, seeing the blood on my clothes and the key in my hand.
“Sage. Where’s my baby brother? You didn’t hurt him, did you?” Niko tried to keep his tone light and controlled, but his jaw ticked, and his shoulders were tensed.
“Let us get to the front door and I’ll tell you,” I replied, slipping the key into my pocket.
“You know that can’t happen. I thought I was clear about the choices you had when we chatted upstairs. You leaving without my brother was not one of them.” His tone changed to menacing as he glanced at the blood on Jamie’s knuckles.
“Let us go—”
“No, you tell me where Alex is. Now,” Niko demanded.
“Fine, he’s in one of the rooms past the kitchen.” Jamie gave me a sideways glance while I spoke, but I was confident. If Niko went to help Alex, then that only left two men in the way of the door. Better than three.
Niko rushed forward, and Jamie and I stepped out of the way so he could go through the dining room door. But as he passed me, he grabbed my arm, pulling me close.
“If anything happened to Alex—”
“You better hurry, then. He could use help sooner rather than later,” I told him coldly.
“You’re coming with me, to show me where he is.” Niko started tugging me back into the dining room, and my fearless act disintegrated. I hadn’t expected him to take me. I fought to pull my arm out of his grip, and when that didn’t work, I went limp and fell to the floor. He almost went down with me as he struggled to pull my dead weight back up.
“What the hell are you doing? Get up.”
“You could force me to go with you. But I’ll fight you every single second. It’ll take you way longer to get to Alex if you have to drag me. He might not have that much time…” I let my voice drift off and shrugged carelessly.
I knew what Niko would choose. He would choose his brother, his family. He glared at me as his eyes darted around the room. He was trying to figure out another way to make me go. To be in control of this situation. I couldn’t help but shoot him a frigid smile, baring all my teeth. I’d seen his anger in the past, and right now he was furious. But there was nothing he could do if he wanted to get to his brother in a hurry.
His hand loosened and I went to step away from him. Before I was out of his grasp, he wrapped his other hand in my hair and yanked me back to him until I was right next to his face, with his lips right next to my ear.
“Even if you do get out of this house tonight, this won’t be the last time I see you. Or my family’s last time. We’re everywhere. I told you that. No one and nowhere is safe. Your old life is gone. Remember that.”
He let go of me and shoved me into Jamie as he ran into the dining room. Jamie and I looked at the two men who were still in front of us. They had already set their rum bottles on the floor.
