Page 104 of The Devil's Reward
A cold smile pulls across my face. Looks like Dmitri just made his first mistake, because we’ve been there before, and I know exactly where they’ll be.
We’re coming, gorgeous. Just hold on.
FIFTY-THREE
QUINN
Please, please let Shadow find me.
I’m terrified, and my face hurts from where he hit me with his gun. Dagger, who is currently trying to talk his way out of whatever the hell is going on, is sitting across from me on the opposite side of the seat, hands bound, and his own face is already swelling from where the man in the front sitting silently hit him. The driver is also silent, never so much as glancing back at us.
Neither man looks friendly, and I try to make myself as small as possible in the seat. I don’t want to end up dead. My eyes fill with tears as I think about Macy. Thank God she was in the pantry and out of sight. I hope Shadow finds her because if anything happens to her, I’ll never live with myself.
I try to work at the bindings on my wrists inconspicuously, but they don’t budge, and all I do is rub my skin raw. So, instead of trying to get free, I listen. Maybe I can use the information later. It’s better than panicking and crying. The least amount of attention I can draw, the better.
“Come on, man, you need to understand that I’m doing exactly what Dmitri wanted. I’m bringing the club down, and now they’re going to be in a panic to get this bitch back, and that’s when they make mistakes. Tell Dmitri to go in now and he can wipe them out completely,” Dagger argues.
My heart seizes at the thought. Macy is still there. No, they can’t.
“Shut up,” the man in the front snaps at him, letting his composure slide for the first time. I knew he was a killer, but it’s written all over his face how much he would love just to take care of Dagger now. But I guess he has other ideas, or orders from this Dmitri person, and that means Dagger gets to live for the time being. I don’t know what they plan to do with me.
Dagger goes quiet, but I can see that his mind is already still on how to get out of here. Though I doubt I’m involved. If I want out of here, I’ll probably have to make it happen myself. I pray that Shadow has even noticed I’m gone, and that he’s taking care of Macy.
“What are you going to do with her?” Dagger suddenly asks, nodding to me.
I shrink down further in my seat, hunching my shoulders. The big man in front barely glances back at me. “That’s for the boss to decide,” he says. “You fucked up and didn’t grab the right one.”
“It’s not like I could just grab that bitch and get her out of there on a damn gurney,” Dagger objects, sounding affronted. “I’d be dead.”
“And you think you will live through this?” the other man asks coldly, sending a chill down my spine.
“Dmitri knows I’m valuable. I’m the only one who knows where all the locations are. Without me, he’s fucked.” He sounds far too proud of that fact, and I glance in the side-view mirror and see the big man smirking. It would seem that Dagger is incorrect in his assumption, and that doesn’t bode well for me.
And what did he mean that he grabbed the wrong woman? Was he supposed to grab someone else? The only women in the med bay were Rose and Sage. So which one was he supposed to take? I curse the fact that my hands are tied and I can’t get to my phone without someone realizing.
I look out the window, trying to gauge where we are. Nothing looks familiar, and I berate myself for not exploring the town all that much. I try to find landmarks, something I can use if someone does try to come for me. Or, if by some miracle, I escape.
Suddenly we make an abrupt turn up an old gravel path, overgrown with trees and weeds. Branches scrape across the SUV as we pass and my mouth goes dry when we finally emerge and I get a good look at the building ahead of us. It’s old and dilapidated, but I see a man standing beside another SUV, looking foreboding.
He’s wearing the same suit as the man in front, but the air about him is different. More in charge, and he knows it. The tattoos on his neck and the leather gloves on his hands make him that much more dangerous. Some might find him handsome, but me, I see the devil in disguise.
When the SUV pulls to a stop beside the man, he immediately opens my door, pausing when he sees me. “And what do we have here?” he asks in a deep accent, looking me over critically. It makes me shiver, and there’s a sick kind of pleasure that fills his eyes. “Did you pick up this lovely thing along the way, Isidor?” he asks silkily to the man who is climbing out of the passenger seat.
“That one,” he says with a nod at Dagger, who is dragged out by the driver, “grabbed her, and was threatening her. She saw my face, so she came too.”
“You do seem to have a knack for fucking things up,” the man in charge says to Dagger, but there’s a darkness in his voice that makes Dagger pale. “You would think that even now you would be on my good side, but brains are not your strong suit.”
“It’s not like I had time to grab that other bitch,” Dagger defends loudly. “She was under lock and key. You try and get around those protective bastards.”
I hear a loud groan as the man holding him punches him in the gut, and I flinch. The man in charge tsks and pulls me out of the vehicle, though his grip isn’t as hard as the other man’s. Not that I think he’ll be kind to me. “Well, I suppose I should apologize to you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says casually to me. I don’t reply, my throat closing as the words refuse to budge. “I’ll have to decide what to do with you when I’m done with this one. Though I have some ideas.”
My stomach churns at the thinly veiled insinuation. I force myself to be still. Maybe I can get out of this. I wait until he’s looking back at Dagger to look around. There’s nothing around but trees, the crumbling building, and a small shed. This place is in the middle of nowhere.
How the hell is Shadow going to find me here? It’s not like it’s on the main road and he can just drive on by. Hopelessness fills me and I blink hard to fight back tears.
“Dmitri,” Dagger tries again, having caught his breath.
“Shut up,” Dmitri snaps at him, voice like a whip. “You’ve cost me time and money. Let’s go.” His grip tightens on me and he starts walking towards the building, and I have to quicken my steps to keep up. When I stumble, he rights me with a hard yank that has me crying out, but I quickly clamp my mouth shut when he gives me a cold look.
