Page 64 of Lies You Told
“Jax, hang in there. She’s strong and a fighter, but she will need you when all this is over. We’ll see you in a few hours.”
“What?”
“I spoke to Adrien, and the plane will be ready for us when we get to the airport.” I’m not sure if this is directed at Mike or me. I’m so glad Chloe, and she gelled. I need my friends around to deal with the after-effects of all this.
Ilook around the room, and everyone looks tired. The FBI turned up an hour ago and was pretty pissed that the first time they heard about it was on the news. Danny went off to deal with them.
I walked over to the far side of the room, where the hotel left us a carafe to make drinks. The coffee isn’t great, but I’m not leaving this room to get a better cup of coffee. I’ve been messaging Ryan, trying to see if he’ll take my call, but so far, he’s not playing. Of course, I don’t know how much they know about Chloe and me being a couple.
One of the tech guys keeps looking over my way. It’s making me nervous. He’s tapping his finger on the key like it’s some kind of nervous twitch.
Danny walks into the room and approaches the tech guy immediately, and they both look at me. Now I’m definitely nervous.
The pair talk in hushed tones, but part of me is fucking worried about going over there. As I approach them, Danny moves away and tries to approach me, intersecting me.
“What have you found?” I ask as I try to push away from him.
Danny is strong, but my adrenaline has kicked in, and I push him off me and make a beeline for the tech guy. He presses a couple of buttons on this keyboard, and the screen changes, so I can’t see what they were both looking at a minute ago.
“Jax,” he gruffs. “You don’t want to see it.”
“It can’t be any worse than what my imagination has been playing on a loop for the last couple of hours.”
“Chloe wouldn’t want you to see her like this,” Hannah says from her seat at the table. She refused to go back to the apartment, saying she wanted to be here when it was time to move on Chloe. I know she feels bad and thinks she let Chloe down, but we wouldn’t have known Franchesca was involved without her.
Watching that scared look on her face when we finally got our eyes on the elevator footage made me go crazy. Seeing the pair of them together. The only thing keeping me sane is knowing that Greyson is with her. I'm certain he will protect her as much as he can, especially in light of the family connection.
“With all respect, nobody in this room knows her better than I do.”
A voice clears on the other side of the room, and I look up to see Kieran on his phone. “Show him. He’ll need to know if and how to help her through this.” He stands up and makes his way over to the coffee station. I am glad Kieran refused to leave a couple of hours ago, even though I haven’t been here long enough to bond with any of the other guys. I only know Jacob because of his ‘thing’ with Mike and Kate, which still blows my mind. Their relationship is strong. I never in a million years thought Mike would share once he and Kate got together, but I think they both get off on having him in the room.
The tech guy presses a couple of buttons on his keyboard, and the screen comes up with what must be security footage. It then registers what Kieran had just said; he must have known about the feed.
“When did you get this?” I ask, looking at the room. Greyson is sitting in a chair, his chin resting on his chest, and he’s passed out.
Chloe’s dress has been cut up to her waist, and her arms tied to a chair. He has a knife to her throat, pressed to her skin, but there’s no blood. She’s looking him dead in the eyes. Not backing down. He licks the side of her face, sniffing her hair before he pulls away. We can’t see her face from the angle we have, and that might be a blessing in disguise.
I want to murder the guy.
Kieran puts his hand on my shoulder, and I know he’s trying to be reassuring, but I want this thing over with. I want Chlo in my arms.
One of the other tech guy’s computers starts making a noise, and the room goes into a frenzy.
Danny runs into the room with the two FBI guys.
36
CHLOE
I’ve slowly been moving my wrists under the rope, but the sweat from being here for a couple of hours has made red marks appear on my skin. These are going to hurt like a bitch after Jax gets me out of here.
They’ve been holding us in this apartment for hours. It’s expensive, judging by the size of the place. We’re still in Manhattan, though, and that surprises me. I’d have thought that they’d have moved us off the island.
The sky out of the huge floor-to-ceiling window is starting to get light. I have a better idea of where we are now that the daylight is casting its glow on the Hudson.
Greyson passed out a couple of hours ago, and I’m equally glad and scared shitless. I look across the room and see Marco twirling the knife, spinning it around and around, pinching the very end of the handle. He always did love that fucking knife. That’s what stopped me from reporting him all those years ago. He threatened me with that knife more than he could have done by touching and using any part of his anatomy. He’s never broken skin, though. I guess the emotional damage lasts way longer than any physical damage. I mean, where would the fun be if I had physical scars on me? Scars that people, my friends, would see. I’ve learned the value of shutting down. I would have done that already, but I need to be ready when Jax and Danny’s team get here. Jax doesn’t know this. I begged Danny and Hannah not to say anything to Jax, but we thought something like this could happen. Hannah and I had a ‘safeword,’ if you will. But we didn’t have a chance to use it. I thought something would happen in a way more low-key fashion than what went down tonight.
I’ve not seen Franchesca for a couple of hours, not since her dad passed out. I don’t understand why the pair of them are working together. I knew what Franchesca, and I had experienced was hard to come back from, but this was next level even for her.
