Prologue
It takes a second for Gavin’s meaning to sink in. And when it does, my stomach seems to fall out of my body. I feel like a hollow space has opened up inside me, filled with nothing but freezing cold.
He doesn’t mean take care of me in the “make sure she’s okay” sense. He means it in the “take care of this problem” sense. The full brunt of that realization hits me a second too late, and my eyes widen.
I pivot on my feet and try to run for the door, but Sloan’s on me before I can even take more than a couple of steps. His arm loops around my waist, and I feel the unmistakable pressure of the barrel of a gun at my back.
My breath catches. I go still, fear lancing through me.
I’ve been in plenty of dangerous situations before, even more than usual since I met the guys, but this is a new one for me.
“Nice and easy,” Sloan mutters to me.
My heart is pounding so fast that I can’t distinguish the individual beats anymore. Gavin grabs a length of rope from somewhere behind the desk and then crosses the room and pulls my wrists together in front of me. He binds them tightly, and the touch of his hands on my skin makes a shiver run down my spine.
He tightens the knots with one last sharp pull before looking over my shoulder at Sloan, his gaze sliding right past my face as if I don’t even exist to him anymore.
As if I’m already dead.
“I knew this entire fucking thing was a mistake,” he tells his son. “I hope you’ll remember this next time.”
Sloan doesn’t respond—at least not with words, and I can’t see his face. Keeping one arm looped around my waist and the barrel of the gun pressed tightly to my back, he leads me outside to the car, taking slow, even steps.
My eyes dart around when we get out there, trying to find someone I can signal to for help, but there’s no one around. I can hear traffic from the other side of the building, but that doesn’t help me because I don’t dare scream.
Even though it ended up being a ruse, I remember the calm, unbothered expression on Sloan’s face when he shot my dad, and I wonder if that’s how he is when he has to “take care” of someone for real.
Is he really that cold? That unflappable? How many people has he done this to before me?
My head is spinning, and I can tell I’m starting to panic a little, losing my grip on what’s happening. I focus on trying to breathe, trying to keep my wits about me as Sloan opens the door to the back seat and shoves me inside.
He slams the door shut, and I try to sit up so that I’m not just sprawled out on the seat. It’s not the first time I’ve been tied up or restrained in this car. I remember Rory restraining me the first night, when I was ready to fight all of them to get my dad back and to get off Rory’s lap.
Dammit. What I wouldn’t give for Rory to be here now. He wouldn’t let Sloan do this to me.
Sloan starts the car, backing out of the alley and pulling onto the street. We drive on surface roads for a while before ending up on the highway.
He’s silent again, and I can see his eyes focused on the road, jaw clenched as he drives. There’s not a lot of traffic today, and after several long minutes of driving, he signals to take the exit that leads out of the city, toward the winding back roads that lead to the outskirts of the more populated areas.
That definitely doesn’t bode well, and I look around, trying to find something, anything I can use to cut my bindings and get myself free. Maybe I can take control of the car or just fucking jump out.
I’ll take my chances with possible broken bones and trying not to get run over if it means getting out of this car.
I slide across the seat slowly, trying to make it to the door handle without being noticed. It’ll be hard to pick myself up when I fall out with my hands bound, but it’s worth a shot. I stretch my arms out and over, trying to get to the handle so I can yank the door open, positioning myself so I’m ready to jump.
Sloan’s eyes land on me in the rearview mirror before I can make much progress. “I’ll shoot you while we’re driving if I have to,” he says, voice emotionless.
This is the Sloan I remember from the first time we met. All business, no warmth or light or anything in his face. He’s serious, and I stop trying to escape and stare up at him in the rearview mirror instead.
He looks tired, but he’s pushing through it. Following his dad’s orders like he always has, clearly.
“I spent all this time thinking you were a monster,” I tell him, my voice low and rough. “I laid awake at night, tossing and turning in my bed, thinking about what you did. What I thought you did. Killing my father with no expression on your face, like you did it as easily as breathing. Like it came naturally to you. I didn’t even know how to be around someone like that.”
I swallow. My throat feels fucking parched, scratchy and painful.
“But then I realized I was wrong. You didn’t kill my dad. You weren’t that person.” He’s not looking at me, but I keep my gaze locked on the small part of his face I can see in the small mirror. “Maybe I wasn’t wrong, though. You’re going to do to me what I thought you did to him. With that same look on your face, like it doesn’t matter. Like I don’t matter. So maybe I was right all along. Maybe you are a monster with no feelings and no remorse at all.”
Nothing changes in Sloan’s face as he stares at me for a second and then glances back at the road.
“You’re not so fucking innocent,” he says, his voice strained. “Because of you, a man might have died today.” He shakes his head. “And if he’s not dead yet, he’ll probably wish he was soon, because the Jackals aren’t going to just let him be. He knows too much. They’re not just going to give him a comfortable room of his own and let him keep living his life peacefully until they get what they want.”
I catch the subtle jab at my own situation. Even though I was being used as collateral to make sure my dad did what they wanted, I was kept in a nice house—given food and basic necessities, and even allowed to keep going to school.
I was lucky, in the grand scheme of things.
“They’ll torture him for information, trying to find out as much as they can about our operation,” Sloan adds. His voice turns even sharper, like he’s trying to cut me with his words alone. “That’s all on you, Mercy.”
My stomach twists and bile climbs up my throat. I know he’s right. Whatever I thought or didn’t think, whatever happened or didn’t happen, that’s on me. A man’s life is about to be ended or ruined because I sold him out. That’s something I can’t make right, and even if somehow Sloan doesn’t kill me today, it’ll be on my conscience forever.
How can I even look my father or Scarlett or anyone in the eye, knowing what happened is my fault?
We leave the last outskirts of Fairview Heights, driving into the more forested areas that separate our big, crowded city from the next big, crowded city. I recognize the area as a place people like to go to hike and take their dogs to run, but we pass that pretty quickly, following a winding road until the pavement runs out, and I can hear gravel and dirt crunching under the tires of Sloan’s car.
We’re really off the beaten path now, going deeper and deeper into the woods. The trees start to get thicker around us, and pretty soon Sloan won’t be able to drive through them at all.