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“Wewerea team until Trey...” She sighed. “Fuck it; I’m not going over that again. Tell me what you need.”
“A lot of it is need-to-know,” I glanced at our stoic driver, who was very much eyes-front and focused.
“Well, I need to fucking know,” Ali sounded on edge, “and Jake is very much on the list of need to fucking know otherwise, he won’t know where to freaking take you, asshole.”
I guessedJakewas the one currently sticking to all the speed limits and acting as if we weren’t fleeing Charleston, and when he glanced at me with a nod, it was confirmed.
“Drugs, human trafficking, kids.” I lowered my voice on the last part of that because the poison that I’d watched—that I’d seen firsthand—was evil. “It’s a long fucking story, but we need somewhere to hole up for a couple of days, somewhere we can safely stow the asset’s son.”
“Hold that thought.” The line went quiet, but Ali was talking to Jake because he tapped his ear, murmured a soft yes, and switched lanes for the next exit, heading northeast on the 17 up the coast. “Start from the beginning,” Ali’s voice snapped back in my ear—she was a long way past being pissed.
“Can this wait? The asset deserves to hear this first, and we need to get his son. There’s not enough to indict Rouxier with drugs, not enough to make it stick—”
“What?” Josh shouted from the back seat. “What drugs?”
I had to ignore Josh. “I fucked up, and there are kids.”
“What about Ben? What about my son!” Josh thumped the back of my seat. “What drugs? What is going on?”
I held up a hand to stop Josh from talking, but Josh thumped the seat again, and there was the distinctive rattle of him trying the door handle. The sudden thought of Josh getting it open and rolling out of the car at fifty was enough for me to squirm in my seat and grab the nearest part of Josh I could—his knee.
“Don’t be stupid,” I snapped. “We’re getting your son. Calm the fuck down.”
Ali cursed. “And how is snapping at the asset working for you?”
I ended the call. She’d call back, or she wouldn’t, but Josh was my priority, and him tumbling out of the car wasn’t on the to-do list.
Josh yanked at the handle, frustrated at the lock, and ended up slamming a hand against the glass, then making a fist and aiming for it again. I unbuckled and scrambled to one side to reach into the rear, catching my elbow on Jake’s seat but getting enough of a hold on Josh to snap him out of his panic.
“Your son is safe, we’re going to be safe, and once we’re there, I’ll explain everything.”Or at least what I can.“For now, please trust me.”
Trust that I haven’t fucked everything up.
Even though I probably had.
ChapterSeven
Josh
Panic gripped me,a red mist consumed me, and I was fighting—desperate to get out of the car and go to Ben. It was all I could think about—my boy was everything to me, and I would throw myself from a moving car if I thought I could get to him.
He was the best thing I’d done in my life, and I wasn’t going to leave him to get hurt. The car left the road and headed past a gas station before stopping, and for a moment, I thought Ethan was letting me go, but instead, he clambered over between the two seats and held my hands tight, restraining me. When I stared into his hazel eyes, I saw that same absolute focus, and he stared back at me as the car started again, and I tried to release my hands, curling them so I could yank them free. I tried to use my body to push weight behind them, but he was too strong and had the upper hand, including a knee pressed against my groin. Memories of him holding me down flooded my brain, and I shoved them away.
“You need to stay still,” Ethan demanded.
“Where are you taking me? Let me the fuck out to get my son.”
“Tell me about your son,” Ethan said. “Is he a good kid?”
I struggled in his grip, but there was nothing I could do—I didn’t even have a burst of superpower energy, the kind that enables parents to lift cars off their loved ones—I was powerless, frustrated, and scared.
“Tell me about Ben,” he repeated.
But talking about my son wasn’t making him safe. Talking about him made me want to scream and cry and throw myself out of a moving car to get to him.
“No—I can’t think—let me out, I need to… ”
“I promise you that Ben is being extracted as we speak.”
