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Taking Chloe.
“Let mego,” I scream. “They can’t—”
“Riley.”
“We need to—”
“Riley.”
“I have to… have to…”
“I know,” he says as I struggle against the iron cage of his arms.
But he doesn’t know, or he wouldn’t have fucking stopped me.
“Maddoc.” I wrench my face away when he reaches up to wipe my tears, his other arm locked firmly around my waist. “I have to save her. Let me fucking go!”
Instead, he cups my face and holds me even tighter, so tight that I feel the thundering beat of his heart against mine. Tight enough that the pain ripping through me only shreds me on the inside instead of ripping me all the way apart when I finally face the truth and break down sobbing against his chest.
We were too late. We lost her.
My sister is in the hands of a monster now.
38
MADDOC
I biteoff a curse and bottle up my impotent rage over McKenna getting the drop on us so I can absorb Riley’s tears as she collapses against me. She’s a fighter through and through, and has been since day one. This collapse is something else.
It’s a sign that I fucking failed her.
Now I need to fix that… and the clock is ticking.
“She’s gone,” Riley whispers in a broken whisper that rips something open inside me.
“It’s not over,” I tell her, stitching that shit right back up because I have to, no matter how much I’m still reeling from how close she came to taking a bullet just now.
If they’d gunned her down in the street like they did Payton, it would have gutted me, but this—the raw pain she’s radiating—is almost worse. My jaw clenches tight as she stares up at me with her eyes still overflowing, like she’s begging me to make her believe what I said is true. Like she’s still teetering on the edge of a fucking breakdown that I know damn well she understands we don’t have time for.
Riley’s breath hitches. “But what will they do to h—”
“Nothing,” I cut in before she can start spinning horror stories that aren’t gonna do us a damn bit of good to contemplate right now. “West Point is gonna keep her alive. They have to if McKenna’s gonna get his hands on that money.”
It’s not sugar coated, but it’s the truth. Most of it, anyway. West Point sure as shit won’t have any reason to keep Chloe aliveafterthey get access to her inheritance, and “alive” doesn’t include any particular need to treat her well—especially not with a fucking sadist like McKenna calling the shots—but Riley doesn’t need to hear that shit right now.
And not least of which because there’s no way in hell that my brothers or I are ever gonna let it come to that.
“Do you understand?” I press when she keeps staring up at me blankly. “We’ve still got time to get her back. I need you to stay focused so we can get it done. The only way through is forward. Everything else can wait.”
Everything elsehasto wait.
It’s a lesson I’ve learned hard and often, and it’s the same shit I say to myself each and every time I feel like I’m spinning out, or about to collapse under the weight of everything. Again, not sugar coated, but true. No matter how much shit life piles on—and the worse it gets, the heavier she dumps it—the only ones who get bogged down and buried in it are those who are too weak to keep going. You can always carry more, power through, if you’re strong enough.
And IknowRiley’s strong enough.
After a moment, she nods, proving me right. I can tell it takes an effort and that she’s barely keeping it together, but barely is good enough. I can practically see her spine stiffening, and then I feel it when she pulls away from me, throwing her shoulders back and angrily dashing the last of the tears off her cheeks.
“You’re right,” she says, her voice strained but determined. “Let’s go. Do you know where they’ll take her?”
