Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100791 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I was glad that River shuddered beneath me, because I did too.
GENNY
I stumbled on the steps, half tripping, half falling down. With a cloth sack over my head, it was amazing I was upright at all.
Clambering off the final step, a wrenching grip on my arm frog-marched me through a parade of shouts, arguments, and barked orders. The Brotherhood was clearing out as fast as they could, getting ready to take off behind the car that boasted me blind and gagged in the trunk.
“No, leave that! We won’t have room for a TV.”
“What are we supposed to do all day without a TV?” a weedy voice snapped back. “All we do is sit around waiting for orders.”
“The TV stays. Take a fucking book if you’re so bored.”
From the grumbling, groaning, and bitching, no one liked that decision.
Wherever they were going, it obviously wasn’t another Luca Hellhouse with plenty of rooms for his vile business, so maybe—hopefully—this was the last of Luca’s boltholes, and all the women he kidnapped were finally found and could get back to the lives stolen from them.
“Whoa, look,” someone cried. “It’s that Merchant bitch. The stupid shit actually thought she could take us all on her own.”
Raucous laughter ripped through the fussing and fighting.
“Poor girl’s been sipping on her legend for too long. She actually thought she was some unbeatable badass.” He raised his voice. “How’d that work out for you, sweetie?”
I was dragged out the door as a million cutting snapbacks sprung to my lips.
“They’ve been parking their cars all over the woods so that no one who stumbles on the house will think it’s weird that thirty cars are parked on the lawn,” Bee hissed.
I couldn’t see her, but she was obviously big-time pulling off the ruse. As gross as it was, I had to strip that worthless sack’s corpse and choose Bee to take his place. She was the only one tall enough, thin enough, and with hair short enough that a quick glance from the side wouldn’t alert the brothers to the switch. With them so busy packing up and clearing out, and the sun beginning to set, I trusted they were too busy trying to clear out while they still had light to worry about what the guy lurking around next to them was doing. So far I was right.
So far...
“Brothers could be lurking anywhere in the trees,” Bee said. “The car for this key could be anywhere. I’m supposed to know where it is and take you there. What now?”
“Calm, Bee. Just confidently march me off to the big blue van parked out in the open. That’s the car I was brought in.”
“They’re loading their weapons into that van.”
All the more reason that’s the van for me. I worried my lip, thinking quickly. “Okay, just march me into the woods like nothing’s wrong.”
Bee veered us both toward the left. I held my breath waiting for someone to shout, shoot, or sound the alarm but... nothing.
“Okay.” Bee tugged the sack off. “Now what?”
I looked around as I placed my back against a massive oak tree, giving myself one less position to defend. I could still hear the brothers, and dusk’s light allowed me to partially make them out through the trees.
“Don’t worry, Bee. The first step was getting out of that hallway. There was only one way out, and it was too dangerous having bullets flying around you guys. We’re lucky no one got hit the first time.”
“So do we wait?” she asked, peeling off her borrowed blazer and flinging it over a branch.
I wasn’t too worried about anyone finding the man who used to own that blazer. There was nothing but empty closets in the hostage bedrooms. The brothers had no reason to go in looking for anything, because none of them kept a single thing in them. And besides, why would they need to go looking for Brother Rapist when they just saw him walk out the door?
“They said all the hostages are staying behind,” Bee continued, “so once they leave, we can free them, get out of here, and the Brotherhood won’t know a thing.”
I shook my head. “Most of them will leave, but not all of them. A few will stay behind, hiding in the dark and the trees to wait for my family to get here. As soon as they all enter the house, they’ll set off the bomb—making damn sure this time.” I looked away from the guys loading guns into the van and met her eyes. “Gotta assume they’ll do the same thing if they see me pop out of nowhere to lead the hostages out.
“Kaboom.”
She flinched. Bee, short for Beatrice, may have been tall and thin, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tough. Bee was a slick and slippery fighter. Just when you thought you had her pinned, she’d disappear from your hold and you’d wake up a minute later with her boot on your throat. If I was going to take on a dozen armed idiots and a bomb, she was who I wanted on my side.