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“Does it matter? She’s missing.”
“Mari,” she says with a weary sigh.
I grind my teeth. Quinn and I have fantasized about murdering Crius over the years, and she thinks I’m about to ruin our carefully laid out plans, but Phoenix is more important than revenge.
Fuck.
Phoenix is more important to me than anything.
Falling silent, I slow to approach the gates. The guard sweeps his gaze over the car and waves me through the opening barrier.
“Listen to me,” I keep my voice even but rev up the engine and accelerate down the road running alongside the security walls. “When you met Mother, she was no longer an addict, and the scars on her body were healed. I shielded you from hearing about the worst of what Crius did to her while I was growing up, but let me assure you, it was beyond horrific.”
Her breathing quickens. “But if this girl is connected to a powerful family—”
“She isn’t, and Crius will see her as a nobody. But she’s exactly the type of innocent he would love to corrupt.” My throat thickens as I say the words. “Give me those coordinates, and I swear to you that I will not rest until that man is dead.”
Quinn still doesn’t answer.
Flames of frustration burn through my insides, leaving me breathing smoke. This girl is the only thing standing between Phoenix surviving being abducted and a fate that would make her pray for death.
I clench the steering wheel because there’s no time to shake the information out of Quinn. “It took just one phone call for Crius to lure Mother to his side. Because no matter how long she spends away from him or how much time she heals in rehab, there will always be a piece of her that craves his cruelty. Do you want to condemn another girl to a lifetime of that?”
As I drive into the outskirts of Marina Village, I hear her swallow over the phone.
“You promise to make sure he doesn’t abduct any other girls?” she asks. “The rest of the family went to their graves never knowing what happened to my big sister.”
Inhaling a deep breath, I force down a surge of warring emotions. I was born in captivity but it still never registers how Mother’s family would have suffered in her absence.
“I swear it.”
“And you won’t stop until he’s dead?”
“I’ll even bring you a souvenir.”
“Alright,” she says. “I’ve been watching them these past few hours. They’re meandering around the back roads—”
“Why?”
I cringe. That’s what panic does to a person. Dulls their brains. Makes them overlook the obvious.
“In case they’re being followed? If anyone saw the abduction and alerted the police, they’ll be searching for the getaway van on all the major roads. Anyway, it looks like they’re headed for the motorway.”
“Specifics, Quinn,” I say.
She directs me to a dual carriageway where I can drive seventy miles an hour. I weave through the sparse traffic at a hundred.
“Have they come out of the side roads?” I ask.
“Not yet.” Her voice slows, the way it does when she’s distracted. “They’re still meandering.”
“You can call him cruel and callous, but never careless,” I mutter.
“This is textbook paranoia,” she says.
“It isn’t if someone really is trying to kill you.” A police car awaits several miles ahead, and I slow down to seventy so as not to trigger any speed detectors. “Crius knows the next time we meet I won’t fail.”
“Alright, take the next exit.”
