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As soon as it stops, I grab the door handle and wrench it open, sticking the gun in my hand in the guy’s face. He looks startled and then afraid when he sees my masked face, but I don’t give a shit.
“Get out of the car,” I say, my voice surprisingly even considering how frantic I feel.
The guy’s eyes go even wider, and he scrambles to get out, grabbing his phone and stumbling out of the car to the road.
“Let’s go!” I call to the others, getting behind the wheel as Gage, Ash, and Knox pile into the car quickly.
We leave the man in the dust as I floor it, fingers clenched on the steering wheel. I’m driving erratically, weaving back and forth, and my hands are shaking so much I can barely keep the wheel straight.
Gage looks like he wants to say something from the passenger seat, but he doesn’t. Ash is in the back with Knox, giving me directions as he follows the tracking on his phone.
“Left here,” he says, and I yank the car in that direction, bumping over the curb a bit as I send us shooting down a side street.
I blow through a stop sign, and it’s a good thing that it’s late enough that there aren’t that many people on the road. Because I can’t care about traffic laws or any of that when Priest’s life is hanging in the balance like this.
At one point, Gage reaches over and rights the wheel, guiding me away from the side of the road and back into my own lane. I’ve got so much adrenaline running through me, and my brain is just playing memories with Priest on a loop.
I think about how we didn’t get along at all when I first got here, and how much he hated me. How he wanted me dead. Looking back just makes it even more painful because we’ve come so far. All I can think about is the shit I haven’t said to him and the wild desperation in Julian’s face.
He told us he wouldn’t be lenient next time we crossed him, and we crossed him in a pretty big fucking way.
We end up in a warehouse district near the docks, and I bring the car to a halt in front of a line of buildings that stretches for several blocks, then yank my mask off. The men have already taken off theirs, and their faces are shadowed in the interior of the car.
It’s dark all around us except the light from the few street lamps that line the sides of the street, and it seems deserted at this time of night.
The whole place is quiet, and the silence is almost eerie.
“Which one?” I bite out, looking at Ash in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know,” he mutters with a grimace. “I can’t pinpoint which building. But he’s here somewhere.”
The tension in my body only increases at that. There are a ton of buildings on this row, and they could be in any of them. That’s not fucking helping at all.
We’re close. We’re so fucking close to where Julian is, yet so far. And Julian had a head start on us. A pretty fucking big one. He’s had too much time. Anything could have happened, and the longer we wait, the more chances bad shit has to happen.
I get out of the car and start walking to the closest building. The windows are dark, and when I peer through, all I can see is dusty boxes and vague covered shapes.
Not this one.
We go down the line, checking each building for signs of life or a struggle, but we don’t find anything, and the longer it takes, the clearer it becomes we’re not going to be able to do this on foot. There’s just too many buildings to search.
But what else can we do? That thought comes to me again, and I’m almost sick with it. We have to keep looking. We have to—
The ringing of a phone splits the silence of the night, and I glance over to see Gage pulling his phone out of his pocket.
He scowls down at the screen, and I know instantly it’s Julian and hurry over.
“Where the fuck are you?” Gage says as soon as he answers, putting the phone on speaker.
At first, there’s no sound, other than the slight crackling of the call coming through. Then the screen goes black for a split second, only to fill with the image of Julian’s face.
He’s put it on a video call.
He swings the phone around then we see Priest. He’s chained up, bloody and sagging in the restraints. Julian moves back into the frame and jabs Priest in the arm with his finger, digging it into a clearly open wound.
Priest flinches in pain, but doesn’t cry out. I can see the muscles in his jaw working, and he’s straining, trying to hold back the scream.
I don’t know what Julian has been doing to him, but there’s blood running down that arm, and Priest’s chest heaves as he pants for breath.
