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“I’ll go check on her.” Hopefully, I can catch her before she comes back. She’s been tempting me all afternoon in her suit. I wouldn’t mind moving the bottoms out of the way and sinking deep inside her before we come back with beers. Besides, who knows how long Lucy and Jude will be busy bickering. I doubt they’d even notice we’re gone.
Walking up the stairs, I call out to Charlie. “Babe, there’s a little problem I need your help with,” I say, referring to the growing erection in my shorts. “Okay, maybe little isn’t the right word.” I open the door and stop dead in my tracks, the blood draining from my face.
Jace has Charlie by the hair, and he’s injecting something into her neck. Her face is bloody, and her right eye is swollen almost completely shut.
“You motherfucker,” I yell as I charge toward him. Before I’ve barely made it two steps inside the cabin, Jace lets go of Charlie’s hair, grabs a gun, and shoots me, the bullet tearing through my gut and knocking me back off my feet. I grab my side and watch as Charlie’s blank eyes stare at me, unseeing and about to close. The pain is almost unbearable as I try to move toward my woman.
“Uh-uh,” Jace sneers as he watches my pathetic attempt to get to Charlie. I hear gunshots in the distance toward the lake.
“You’re done. You and your friend. Did you really think you were going to keep what’s mine?” Jace asks, kneeling next to me.
I’m losing too much blood too fast, causing my vision to go hazy along the edges.
“She doesn’t have your notebook, you piece of shit.” The words are disjointed and sound slurry to my own ears.
Jace looks back at Charlie. “Huh, well, that’s too bad for her, but I’m still taking her, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Keeping my eyes open is a losing battle, and the last thing I see is Jace standing upright, his boot coming toward my face.
Then it’s lights out.
Chapter nineteen
Charlie
Theexcruciatingpainisthe first thing that registers when I attempt to open my eyes. I manage to get one eye open, but the other won’t budge. It’s swollen shut. Son of a bitch, Jace hit me harder than I think he ever had. My head is fuzzy, and my mouth feels like I went on a three-day bender. Not that I ever have, but I imagine the complete lack of moisture and disgusting taste in my mouth would be similar.
Okay, Charlie, think. What happened?
I remember going up to the cabin to grab a few more beers. When I walked in, Jace was in there, sitting on the old recliner with a gun on his lap. Before I could turn and scream, he leapt off the chair and punched me in the face.
Explains the swollen eye.
I whirled around to fight him off, but he was moving so fast. He had me on my back with his fist tangled in my hair, then slammed my forehead on the hardwood floors. Fuck, that one hurt.
I remember feeling dazed when he wrenched my head back, then something pinching the side of my neck. Before whatever he injected in me took effect, Linc came in and charged Jace, but Jace was too fast and shot Linc.
Oh God. He shot Linc. Jude and Lucy had to have heard it. They were a good distance away at the lake, but there’s no doubt in my mind they would have heard the loud gunshot.
That’s all I remember before waking up here.
I take a look around my surroundings. My hands are zip-tied behind my back, and my ankles are duct taped to the metal folding chair in the middle of an old warehouse. I don’t have any memory of getting here or anything that happened after Jace drugged me. I’m still in my bikini and chilled to the bone, but thankful for the small amount of coverage it provides—a very small amount.
“Oh good, you’re awake. I was worried I gave you too much,” Jace says, walking into my line of sight.
“What did you give me?” I croak.
“Just a little concoction my friends came up with. I guess they use it in their line of work.”
“Is their line of work abducting women?”
“It is,” he says matter-of-factly. “The Italians have done quite well for themselves in the skin trade. Boy, do they have a bone to pick with that motorcycle club you’ve been whoring yourself for.”
Linc mentioned something about the Italians and the club not being on good terms for years, but he didn’t say it had anything to do with them selling women.
“I don’t have your book, Jace.”
“Oh, I know. Your boyfriend told me that before I kicked him in the face.”
