Page 89 of Shattered Hearts

“What were they testing? Did she remember?”

I pick and choose my words carefully. “If the drugs were...effective.”

“Stop the truck.”

I jerk to the side of the road and slam on the brakes.

Zane grapples frantically with his seatbelt buckle, and he bolts out of the cab, leaving his door hanging open. He drops to his knees and vomits into a snowbank the plow made clearing the highway.

Baby whines, and I reach over the seat and rub her neck.

I don’t look at his breakfast against the stark white because my own churns in my stomach. I held it together while Zarah relived her nightmare. It was the least I could do given the fact she went through it. God only knows how many times they tested her in the five years she spent at the sanatorium.

Maybe Zarah’s right after all. Maybe Zane has no fucking business watching that video. The son of a bitch was weak then, and he’s weak now.

Using a pristine handkerchief that’s as white as the snow he just puked in, he wipes his mouth and climbs into the truck. He slams the door shut, rests his head against the back of the seat, and closes his eyes. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.”

“Did she . . . did she remember details?”

“No,” I lie, my voice clipped.

“Thank God for small favors.”

“If you want.”

I’m pissed, my anger simmering close to the surface. I want to clock him, I really do. Let my demons come out to play all over his pathetic body.

“I deserve what you’re thinking.”

He fuckingdoesdeserve it, and I don’t say anything to deny it.

“I’ll fix it,” he insists.

“I’m not the one you need to say that to.”

“Yeah, I do. You love my sister, and you think I’m a despicable sack of dog shit.”

I throw him an annoyed glare. “I wasn’t even in the picture three months ago. You don’t owe me a goddamned thing. You owe those two women back there,” I say, jerking my thumb toward the rear window, “all that and more.”

“I don’t know what to do.” He slumps against the door, his handkerchief pressed to his lips.

“Buy that fucking piece of shit building and raze it.” The words slip out. I don’t fucking know how many millions of dollars I just told Zane to spend, but the second I say it, I like how right it feels.

“I’ll buy it all,” he mumbles, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket.

“Buy it all?” What the fuck does he mean?

“This is Maddox,” Zane barks into his phone. “What are they going to do with Black Enterprises?”

A voice vibrates through the line, annoyed, like a mosquito buzzing.

“They aren’t going to find anything on Willow Black. They’ve been digging for a year and a half. She either doesn’t know anything or she’s covered her tracks so well they’ll never find them.”

There’s a pause as he listens.

“No, I don’t mean the companies. Those are gone. Any legal part of anything Clayton Black did will be sold off and liquidated. I mean the actual brick and mortar building. Make Willow an offer. Before this is over, everything Clayton and Ash Black owned will be mine.”

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