Page 75 of Secondhand Secrets

For some inexplicable reason, his mother came to mind. The day of her breakdown. All the rubble. All the blood. All the lows one hit when hope seemed lost. And this time, Chip would play a grand scale part in that outpouring of grief.

I have to find a way to stop this.

He would cling to Dean’s news about Ally and Sarah being safe. That Mark would arrive in Harlow minus the people he sought to target. Only Chip’s life would hang in the balance, the Syndicate likely to keep him alive to get to Stonewall.

He had no illusions. He’d ultimately die. But maybe those close to him would survive.

The uneven field below was not fit for landings, and the plane took on a series of rough bounces, but soon, the plane came to a complete stop, and the gun-wielding goon waved his weapon at Chip to start walking.

He took his reluctant stroll to the exit and passed the guy working on his laptop. The guy stopped to give Chip a glassy stare, his brow holding a light sheen of sweat despite the cabin’s cool interior.

Mark already stood at the exit but hung back, allowing Chip and the goon to leave first. Maybe because he feared any bullets fired would go through Chip and into him… What a chilling thought.

“Welcome home, Mr. Overton.” Mark’s optimistic tone followed Chip down the ramp.

Though tension pulled at his chest, he focused ahead and said nothing. An old barn he didn’t recognize lay on the field’s edge and close to a road; the guy with the gun prodded him to walk faster. Off the stairs, his cuffed hands impeded his balance through the obstacle of unkempt and dry grass.

A white van with North Dakota license plates sat before the open barn doors, the tires caked in semi-dry mud—as though the van had passed through the wetter woods by Mirabelle River—the vehicle’s front radiator area crushed in and the windshield cracked.

The van’s presence signaled more people had come to partake in his demise, and his side-on approach meant he couldn’t yet see inside the barn. The mere inability to know what awaited him sent bile rising through his chest while his forced pace crushed his habitual need to stop and think.

“Chip!”

His name exploded on Sarah’s ragged and torn cry, his eyes slow to adjust to the barn’s darkness before he formed a clear visual.

When he did find her, she knelt amongst a scatter of rotting straw in the barn’s echoey center, hands bound behind her, a man hovering near with a gun pointed at her blood-smeared forehead.

Chip shuffled back a step, only for a different gun to jab him in the ribcage, that jab lurching him forward while his limbs lost sensation and turned cold.

Ally.

They had Ally too. She knelt beside Sarah, her shoulders rounded and strings of her ice-blonde hair—matted in blood—hung over her eyes. He drew near and found her lower lip trembling, her usually loud presence now inordinately silent.

“Surprise.” The goon behind him offered that sarcastic mumble while the men standing over Ally and Sarah displayed wonky-toothed grins.

Mark strode ahead, completely at home amongst the chaos and pointing at Ally.

“Tie Mr. Overton to the sniveling one.” Mark flicked his gaze to Chip, steel-blue eyes uncharacteristically bright, like this scenario was his happy place, and his corporate persona an ill-fitting suit he begrudgingly wore to support this part of his life. “That’s your woman, isn’t she? It’s only right that you feel it when I put a bullet in her brain.”

Thirty-Seven

Ally winced at the press of Chip’s back to hers, his familiar hard warmth only making this hostage situation evermore painful. As one of Mark’s men lifted her hands and tethered Chip’s cuffs to hers, her already raw wrists hurt even more, while Chip’s fingers were quick to wrap around hers, the intimate gesture breaking her heart anew.

The barn’s musty smell of hot, rotting wood mingled with the stench of stale, damp hay. Senses distorted from her head injury, her face burned and sweat trickled over her collarbone, the discomfort of summer’s high heat making her world seem on literal fire.

“Ally.” Chip’s voice broke through her deepening weakness, and she winced again, her name delivered on a heartsick tone. “Just hold on, okay? I’ll get you out of here. I’ll give him what he wants.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to hear about what he’d give up for her, all while she failed to block out the man standing near with a gun pointed to her head.

Didn’t they know she’d ended things?

Why bring her here to hurt him some more?

She hated having him so close. Hated him because he didn’t hate her.

And he really should have.

Though she’d never been all that brave. Though she wanted to live. She didn’t want Chip to give the Syndicate more power than they already had. So even if the effort of speaking agitated the already minimal contents of her tummy, she found her voice all the same. “Please. Don’t. He won’t let us survive anyway.”

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