Page 105 of Cruel Secrets

I wriggle beneath the grip he has on my shoulder, but his fingers dig deeper. He pushes against the pressure point until the room around me starts to get a little fuzzy at the edges. My head is light as I look up at him.

Noah lets go of my shoulder and pulls out his gun, pressing it to my temple. “You’re going to tell me where Bianca is and you’re going to tell me now. I’m not playing any more games with you.”

The hazy feeling fades as I stare down the barrel of the gun.

He sighs, the corners of his mouth pulling into tight little lines. “You should’ve known this was the way it was always going to end between us, Gia, but I’m willing to give Bianca an even better life than the one you had.”

“You’re a monster and I won’t allow you to raise my daughter to be one too,”

Laughter booms through the room as he wipes an invisible tear from beneath his eye. “That’s a good one, Gia. Me? Raise her to be a monster? Have you seen who her father is? Do you know the things he’s done? He makes me look like an angel.”

My heart plummets. “You know who her father is.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t realize you were sneaking around with a Lynde two years ago?” He chuckles, finger wrapping around the trigger.

“You knew and you let it happen?”

He shrugs. “Always figured there was going to be a day when one of you turned against me. Zoe and Martina are loyal to the core, but you’ve always been a wild card, Gia. Too much like our father.”

“I barely knew him.”

“Funny how that works, isn’t it?” He crouches down, level with me as he pushes the cold metal barrel between my eyebrows. “Final chance.”

My life flashes before my eyes in slow motion as he flicks the safety off.

At the same time, there’s a pounding at the front door. It sounds like an army of people are trying to get inside.

Noah jerks his gun to the door, one hand wrapping around my bicep and hauling me to my feet at the same time. “Jace, take the men and deal with that.”

I try to rip my arm free, but his fingers dig in tighter as he hauls me toward the stairs.

Though I try to fight him every step of the way there, he keeps pulling. It feels like he’s going to pull my arm right out of its socket if I’m not careful.

He gets to the stairs, and I brace against the bottom step, holding on to the wall with one hand and bracing myself.

Noah scowls as the front door rattles hard against the frame and its hinges, shaking the pictures on the walls and sending them crashing to the ground.

“I don’t have time for this.” Noah keeps his hold on me, walking back down the few steps he climbed.

As soon as he’s on my level again, I scramble backward, but he overpowers me, grabbing me around the waist and tossing me over his shoulder. He takes the stairs two at a time, his arm banded around my waist while he ignores the punches to his back.

I swing my feet hard, getting one good kick to his thigh where I plunged the knife.

He and I go crashing to the floor and I roll away, scrambling out of arm’s reach.

It doesn’t matter. Noah takes one look at the room to his right before heading inside and looking around. I follow him into the room, watching the way his gaze sweeps over the stack of diapers near the bookshelf and the baby toys scattered on the floor.

“A panic room.” He smirks and nods to the bookshelf. “It’s behind there, isn’t it?”

“No. Bianca isn’t here.”

I can’t run when he’s this close to finding her. He knows I’m lying and if I run, he’s going to let me go and then send Jace to hunt me down later.

Noah runs his fingers along the bookshelf, tugging at books and looking for the trigger.

I grab the lamp from the nightstand beside the big bed at the other end of the room and hurl it at his head. The toss goes wide, slamming into the bookshelf just beside his head.

Opening the drawer, I pull out a thick book and lob that at him too. It collides with the side of his face as he turns.

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