Page 197 of This Bitter Sweet Temptation
Talbot looked hungry enough when he first laid eyes on it. It’s weird he isn’t insisting I hand it over or trying to rip it from my hands.
He looks up miserably, but he doesn’t move.
Fairfax sighs, dragging a hand down his face, showing off his red, raw eyes.
“They… they have Steven,” he whispers numbly. “Took him hostage at my own office.”
Steven. His son.
The bright young man in the lab coat who looked like he was holding the Holy Grail when he got a good look at the egg.
“Hostage?Whohas him?” My blood chills.
I glance at Talbot again, who shakes once with a terrible, strangled sob. He nods slowly, erratically as he looks up, his eyes clouded.
“My wife. My two-year-old baby girl,” he mutters, pressing his head against his fingers so hard his knuckles go white. “They’re both at home in the basement right now with armed men. They’re dead if I don’t do this. Oh God, forgive me…”
I cannot believe what I’m hearing.
It’s like seeing a spaceship materialize above you. You can’t possibly believe it, even when you’re drenched in terror.
“But how? How can that be?” I clutch the briefcase tighter, knowing it’s pointless.
Maybe with Holden here, I’d have a fighting chance, but I let Talbot send Holden away.
Isent him away.
It’s my turn to catch a case of watering eyes.
Fairfax looks so desperate it scares me as he looks my way again, like he’s trying to tell me something, some silent secret I don’t want.
My heart pounds on. I’m worried I’ll black out.
I still have my phone.
Is it too late to call Holden? Text him? Dial the police?
“But what happened, guys? Who’s doing this?” I demand.
They stare at me blankly, then they share a defeated look, like the first man who answers drops dead.
Then a side door painted gold swings open.
A tall, rough man steps out, emerging from what looks like a storage room, this dark space piled with boxes and covered objects leaning against the wall.
I thought Holden was tall, but this man is amountain.
Not a gentle one.
Greying black hair, oddly angled nose like it’s been repeatedly broken, sharp dark-blue eyes that lock on me like an eagle.
Brute muscles straining under his suit. A field of small, pockmarked scars on one cheek crawling up from his beard. Damaged skin like he was in a fire once or had something scalded poured on his face.
Serial killer vibes. There’s something cold and inhuman in the way he moves. He has what looks like a radio clenched in his fingers.
“Easy now, girl,” he says with a thick Eastern European accent.
The charcoal suit he’s wearing doesn’t quite fit him right. It’s tailored to his frame yet still looks out of place, like someone put a collar on an untamed wolf.
