Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Wait. She was serious.
“Branwen is safe. She’s a Shephard, and Madeline would never forgive Blaise. It’s the rest of us that are questionable.” Forge supplied that information like it was normal conversation.
“Neither of you has to go. We can go alone,” Branwen told them.
“Like hell. Dad wouldn’t let me come, and that was fucked up. He’s my brother,” Than sneered.
“I helped bring you here. I wouldn’t have done that if I had planned on walking away from it. We lost one brother. We don’t want to lose another,” Forge told her.
Branwen nodded and took a deep, steadying breath, then turned to look at me. “A few years ago, one of the guys was shot and killed. He was Than’s best friend.”
“Crosby,” I said softly, remembering the day I’d gotten the text from Ransom about it.
She nodded slightly. “You know a lot.”
“Ransom and I might have met in person again this past fall, but he’s been a big part of my life for eleven years. We’ve shared most of our highs and lows with each other.”
And I’d give it all up, everything we had, if he got to live.
“We only know a little about it. Ransom didn’t share much,” she told me.
“Has he really been talking to you since high school?” Than asked, his voice not hiding the disbelief.
“Texting,” I supplied.
“How often?”
“It varied. It could be several times a day or a few times a week. Our lives would get busy. There was no pattern to it.”
“It was you,” he muttered. “Fucker was texting you.”
I looked at the back of his head, waiting for him to say more.
Forge glanced over at him. “The times he was weird with his phone?”
“Yeah.”
Forge’s eyes shot up to the rearview mirror and met mine before dropping back to the road.
“Here,” Branwen instructed, leaning forward. “Madeline said she’d be parked in a pearl-colored G-Wagon around the side of the store.”
Forge frowned. “You’re meeting her at a spa?”
“Yep.”
“Damn, she’s sharp,” Than said.
Forge smirked. “The trackers,” he said, as if understanding. “She told him she was going to the spa.”
“There,” Than said, pointing at the vehicle we were looking for.
Forge pulled up on the other side of it so that we were blocked from the view of the road and rest of the parking lot.
Branwen reached over to cover my clasped hands with one of hers and squeezed reassuringly. “Ready?”
I nodded.
The vehicle came to a stop, and I unbuckled and reached for the door handle.
“I can’t lose him,” Than said thickly.
I turned my gaze toward him. “Me neither,” I replied, then took one more deep breath and stepped out of the SUV into the bright Florida sunshine.
Although I’d replayed what I’d say to Madeline Hughes hundreds of times in my head since we’d left Madison, the pressure that was riding on this conversation made me feel unprepared.
The windows to the Mercedes G-Wagon were so darkly tinted that I couldn’t see who was inside. The driver’s door opened as we approached, and a man stepped out, dressed in jeans, boots, and a fitted black T-shirt. He was tall with dark hair, almost black, and when he reached up and took off his sunglasses, a pair of blue-gray eyes stared back at me. As if sizing me up.
“Hello, Trev,” Branwen said.
He turned his gaze to hers and smiled. “Good to see you, Branwen.”
“Are you the only one with her?”
A smirk touched his lips, and his eyes twinkled with what looked like mischief. “I’m the only one the bastard won’t kill over this.”
Had he just called Blaise Hughes a bastard?
“Noa, this is Trev Hughes,” Branwen told me.
He flashed a smile. “The younger brother.”
Oh. I hadn’t realized there were two sons. Perhaps they had two for backup. A spare. Like royalty.
Trev’s eyes did a scan of the area. Then he opened the back door and waved a hand for us to get inside.
Branwen stepped forward and went in first.
Although there was a cool breeze, there was a trickle of sweat rolling down my back. I glanced up at Trev Hughes before following her inside.
“If anyone can free him, she can,” he told me. “Relax. He’s alive. I saw him myself this morning.”
A sob slipped out of me at his words, and I covered my mouth as relief hit me so hard that I lost my breath.
His gaze softened, and he nodded his head for me to get inside. “Better hurry. The fucker is hard to fool. He’s always one step ahead.”
By he, I assumed that he was talking about Blaise.
With that warning, I climbed in quickly.
Sitting in the seat, I expected to see Branwen in the captain’s chair opposite of me. Instead, it was a gorgeous woman with flawless features and platinum-blonde hair, slicked back in a low ponytail, wearing a diamond on her finger that could be used as a signal to land a plane.