Page 1 of Then and Now (The Edge of Retaliation 3)
PROLOGUE
Dear Fate,
Here I am, finally writing to you again.
Things haven’t changed, Fate.
Time hasn’t healed anything.
As always, nothing makes sense.
Things aren’t coming together as they should.
Time has changed us very little.
It has only made everything that much more confusing.
Nothing is fixed.
Nobody is happy.
We still live with a dark cloud over our heads.
A cloud you refuse to clear away.
If only you’d explain yourself.
If only you’d tell me why you picked me.
If only you’d tell me why you took Celia.
If only you’d tell me why you chose Tanner.
If only you’d tell me why this web of lies keeps growing bigger.
Why can’t you just let us be?
I have no answers.
I do, however, have so many questions.
Can you answer those for me, Fate?
Of course you can’t. You want me to figure this out.
To learn some valuable lesson.
How am I to do that, when you keep changing the rules?
No, Fate, rules are not meant to be broken.
They’re there for a reason.
Stop changing reason.
You can’t control everything.
Right …
You can control everything.
You’re making sure I know that.
You’re making sure I know you’re coming for me.
For our final battle.
I’m ready, Fate. I’m so ready.
It’s time for my freedom.
The freedom we both know I deserve.
I’ll get my peace.
Just you wait and see.
THEN
1
JOANNE
It’s dark.
Really damn dark.
The only thing that I’m thankful for right about now is that I’m not alone. Tatum is sitting beside me, beaten half to death, his hands shackled in front of him, his feet tied with an old, thick rope that’s attached to the wall, giving just enough for him to scoot around a tiny bit. Every now and then, he winces, letting me know the pain he’s feeling is beyond even words. Mostly, though, he’s quiet. He’s resting, trying to find peace in the chaos of his mind.
He blames himself.
Everything that went wrong he thinks is on him.
I can understand that guilt, but it’s not on him. It’s on all of us. Our plan … It wasn’t well thought out. We were so desperate just to end this, to move on with our lives, to make all the bad go away, that we didn’t cross all our Ts and dot all our Is. In doing that, we ended up here.
In a basement, not sure of our fate, having no idea what will happen next.
Callie and Tanner are out there, no doubt having figured out we haven’t returned yet. They’ll be worried something is wrong, they’ll be trying to figure out what happened and where we are. I’m scared they won’t find us—hell, I don’t even know where they took us. All I know is that we were given the shock of our lives when we were followed after everything went down.
One minute we’re driving, feeling the relief as the cops took away those drug runners, the men who ruined so many lives, and the next we were being chased down by a damn mad man. When we stopped the car to see what was going on, that was the end of us. They came on us without warning, guns loaded. They beat Tatum so bad I can still hear my desperate screams at them to stop, to just stop.
They didn’t.
They wouldn’t.
Now, here we are.
We missed one, you see. We thought we had it all planned out, that the police would take down their entire operation and we could walk away clean. What we didn’t know is that one of them was ahead of the game and got out before the cops could take him. He gathered more of his men and made sure we knew that messing with them would be the worst thing we could ever do.
They’ve certainly made sure of that.
I twist to the side, trying to stretch out my aching back. The wall is cold behind me, like hard stone against my already bruised and battered body. My feet are also tied together at the ankles and I’m bound to a wall, but my hands aren’t cuffed. I guess they figured I’d be too weak to go anywhere; besides, where would I go? Even if I got free in here, I’d have no way out. My face is bruised from the few hits I took, but mostly they took it out on Chase and Tatum.
Chase, mostly.
I don’t even know if he’ll make it through, and that thought is terrifying.
He’s done a lot of wrong, but he doesn’t deserve to die.
“You awake?” Tatum’s husky voice penetrates through the darkness.
Most of the time, we can’t see each other, it’s that dark down here. Occasionally, the sun hits the small window just right and we can see, but other than that we’re surrendered fully to darkness. They have only come down once since they beat the two guys and put us all down here. They’ve told us only one thing: we’ll wish we never messed with them.
