AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hayes looks at me with pleading eyes. I just shrug. There’s nothing I can do to stop her.
“How do we arrange the trade?” Beckett asks, anxious to get this over with quickly.
“Give me your phone, and I’ll call Andrea,” Rialta says.
Beckett hesitates but pulls out his phone. “Arrange for the trade on neutral ground.”
She nods and then dials a number.
We all stare at her. None of us breathing.
“It’s me, Rialta,” she says into the phone before pausing. “I’m safe. The Retribution Kings are willing to make a trade—me for River.”
All of us scowl when she calls us Retribution Kings, but none of us correct her.
“Dawn at the docks by 31st street,” she says before Beckett snatches the phone out of her hand. “And if River or my baby is hurt—we will keep Rialta and fuck her until we’ve knocked her up. You’ll have no chance of becoming her husband or Vincent’s heir,” Beckett growls into the phone before hanging up.
He looks at the room. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 12
Rialta
River will be safe soon—that’s what I focus on as I sit in the back of the blacked-out SUV with my wrists bound together behind my back. We’re parked by the docks, waiting for Andrea.
“Are the ropes really necessary?” Hayes asks.
“Yes,” everyone else in the car barks at him, including me.
“You’re all crazy. This plan won’t work,” Hayes mutters under his breath.
“If you’re smart, you’ll leave this city the second you get River back. Leave before we decide you’re still a threat to us, and we decide to kill you,” I say.
“We’re not afraid of Andrea,” Lennox says.
“But you’re afraid of me. I know your secrets. I know all of you. And if you cross me again, I will kill you all.”
I stare Lennox down.
“You still want to kill me, don’t you?” he asks.
“I hate you with everything in my body. Nothing has changed.”
“Stop bickering; they’re here,” Beckett says from the front seat as he stares at the headlights of another SUV driving toward us.
He and Gage get out of the car, while Lennox and Hayes remain in the backseat on either side of me.
Hayes looks at me. “Hate is an awful lot like love. You can only truly hate those that you love.”
I shake my head. “You know nothing of love, Hayes.”
“What you think you know is wrong.”
“I loved Kit. I loved him. He was the man for me, the only person I could ever love, and Lennox killed him in cold blood. Kit didn’t belong in this world. He did nothing wrong. But Lennox couldn’t have me fucking him while married to him. So he killed him instead of trying to earn my respect. I’ll never forgive him.”
Lennox sits silently—he knows I speak the truth and has given up. I hope he has. I hope after I get out of this car I never have to see Lennox again.
“I like you, Hayes. I don’t want to hurt you. And I want Ri and her baby safe. Beckett won’t take any convincing to leave. Gage won’t either. Go with them somewhere safe and far away. If you want your friend here to live—you’ll take him with you, too,” I say.
