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Fine, maybe they weren’t as bad as I first thought when I showed up.
At least I hadn’t called them bitches out loud.
I gave her a nod, then sent out a text to my brothers for back up.
Izzy walked up to me. “If you’re coming, fine. But you need to keep up. I’ll fill you in while you get ready.” She handed me a knife. “Peyton was taken. I guess taken is relative, since she hasn’t moved from the designated meeting point, but we confirmed that there are five bodies in the barn. Don’t ask how we know that.” Izzy crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head. “One of the women sent in an emergency message. We can only assume that she was found and those dickface husbands are using her for bait. Something happened that set off Peyton’s tracker, letting us know she was in danger.”
Tyler poked her head out of the armory. “Are we going to let him talk to us like that?”
Jessen shoved her back in the room, muttering words I was too far away to catch.
I furrowed my eyebrows, unsettled as I wrapped my head around what Izzy had said. “You have a tracker on her?”
“We all have one. It constantly checks vitals and can be set off if something happens like too much blood loss or major changes in heartrate.” She left me and joined Tyler in the armory.
Chris approached me with a bulletproof vest, gun, and holster in her hands. A timid smile on her face, she pushed the stuff at me. I waved off the vest, but grabbed the gun, holster, and extra ammo.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was low and tinged with sadness. “It’s my fault. Peyton was supposed to have the night off. I thought I rerouted everything so she wouldn’t get any calls, but I forgot about her backup phone. We all have one, and those kinds of emergency messages get sent to both.” I thought about where Peyton’s main phone was and remembered she’d left it in her bag in the kitchen, a place she wouldn’t have heard it go off. During our argument, I’d never once thought about where that phone was, which only served to piss me off… at myself. “The call came in while I was changing clothes. If one of us answers the call, the phones stop ringing. And because Peyton can get obsessive, constantly calling to ask what was going on when she has off, I blocked her number for everyone. That’s why we didn’t answer your calls.”
Chris wiped a hand down her face. “Amateur mistake. So fucking stupid. I thought I was doing the right thing. But don’t worry. Peyton’s been in plenty of dangerous situations before. She knows what she’s doing. They took a big gamble, not knowing how many of us would show up. The husband’s must have a plan, we just won’t know what it is until we get there.”
The new information did nothing to ease the knot in my gut.
The women filed past me, kitted out, without sparing a glance my way. I followed, determined not to be left behind. I had brothers waiting for my call once I knew where we were going, not that we’d need the backup. Still, I wanted my brothers ready, just in case.
“All right ladies, place your bets,” Betty said as she turned on the car and guided it out of the garage.
“Twenty says she’s out of whatever they bound her with and making them rue the day they were born,” Adrienne called from the back.
“Fifty on her taking out one of them,” Chris countered.
Tyler doubled down. “Hundred says one’s already dead.”
Their confidence went a long way toward calming my panic, but knowing she was up against the type of men who would burn the world to the ground to get their way kept me from sharing their absolute conviction.
“I’ve got a cool ten grand for anyone who backs off and lets me kill one of those motherfuckers with my bare hands.” With that, I sat back and tuned out until we arrived at our destination.
ChapterThirty-Five
PEYTON
Awareness seeped into me slowly.A dull throb beat at the base of my skull, and I had to swallow the groan that crawled up my throat.
My butt was numb and my head listed uncomfortably to the side, the cold metal chair making it easy to slump forward. All the memories of what was happening slammed into my blank brain. Text. Barn. Surprised by the husbands. Tasered. Blackness.
My body was growing tense the more I woke up, going rigid. I willed myself to stay limp, for my body to stay as it was for a bit longer, ignoring my discomfort.
I kept my eyes closed and focused on my other senses, pushing past the low throb in my shoulder from where the taser prongs got me. Air was old and stale. Soft crying came from someone close to me. But that was the only noise I could find. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know who was behind the sobbing.
Still, I waited a few more moments before I let my eyes flutter open and sat up. They’d kept us in the same location. Not that I needed the confirmation, but these guys really weren’t the brightest crayons in the box.
At least we were in a place I knew backward, forward, and sideways. Knew the way through the surrounding woods and all the possible escape routes.
Shifting in the chair, I tried to stretch myself out. They had taken my gun, backup ammo, and taser, but a roll of my ankle told me they hadn’t grabbed the knife I hid there.
I pulled at my hands that were bound in rope behind my back. My fingers traced the knot, searching for its weak points. My legs had nothing holding them down.
First not tying up my legs, then keeping us at the barn. The mistakes kept racking up for them.
