Page 99 of To the Grave

The gun fell out of my hand and went sliding across the floor into the darkness of the room. I stumbled to my feet as quickly as I could, hoping to grab Ruth and run, but then a figure advanced toward me, backhanding me so hard that I went down again.

This time I tasted blood in my mouth and I looked up to see Gray Cantwell towering over us, a dark red stain seeping from his shoulder.

“Fucking bitch,” he said, touching a hand to the blood on his shirt. “You shot me. You fucking shot me.”

“Don’t be a baby,” the other man said, hauling me to my feet. “Get the other one.”

I stumbled as I got to my feet, gasping as I saw the other man clearly for the first time. He looked like Jace. Not exactly — his mouth was different — but his nose was the same and I would recognize his green eyes anywhere.

It was Arlo Kane.

He half dragged me into the hall and I struggled to keep my eyes on Ruth, right behind me, being manhandled by Gray.

“Should have come to the city with me,” he said. “We could have had fun before we put you on a plane.”

“You should have taken her straight to the Rope when you had the chance,” Arlo said.

The words almost knocked the wind out of me.

The Velvet Rope, the flight manifests Jace had seen there: Paris, Brussels, Sicily, Seattle, Dubrovnik, Minsk, Berlin, Prague, London.

And then, the list of VIPs who’d bought private villas at the new resort: Tomislav Kovac from Croatia, Jean-Luc Laurent from Paris…

It only took me a few seconds to realize they all corresponded to the cities Jace had seen on the flight manifests at the Velvet Rope. I couldn’t make sense of the details, not while Arlo Kane was dragging me down the stairs, Ruth right behind me with Gray Cantwell, but I got the gist.

Gray — and probably Piers and Arlo — had been trafficking girls through the Velvet Rope and sending them all over the world.

Sending them to the men who planned to maintain private getaways in Blackwell Falls.

Their hunting ground.

A burst of gunfire rang from the back of the house — the kitchen — but my ears were still ringing, everything more muffled than it should have been as Arlo shoved me out the front door. I realized the door had been shot, the old wood splintered, and my addled brain immediately wondered whether it could be restored.

I was falling into apathy, resigned to my fate.

And that was when I heard my mom’s voice.

You’re stronger than you know.

I stumbled off the porch with Arlo and was immediately drenched with rain, the wind cold and brutal as it whipped at my hair and lashed at my face. I almost went down at the bottom of the stairs. Arlo yanked my arm hard enough to make me gasp but it kept me on my feet.

“Get them to the Rope!” Arlo shouted at Gray. He sounded like Jace, and the cognitive dissonance of being pushed around by someone who looked and sounded like one of the men I loved was enough to do my head in.

“I think I need a doctor…” Gray’s face was white, the red stain covering almost the entire front of his shirt.

“After you get the girls out!” Arlo shouted, hustling me toward the car. “We’re not missing out on a two-for-one. We’ll hit them with some H to keep them quiet.”

Panic clutched at my throat, a fresh surge of adrenaline hitting my body as I realized that they planned to drug us and take us away — away from the house and away from the Beasts and away from any chance to escape.

I twisted my injured arm, wincing in pain as I tried to reach my pocket without Arlo noticing. He opened one of the passenger doors while Gray went around to the other side with Ruth. I met her gaze through the rain and hoped she was alert, that she’d be ready to run if I could give us the chance.

I slipped the key out of my picket as Arlo dragged me toward the open car door. There was no time to plan. No time to make sure the angle was right.

I swung my arm as hard as I could, driving the end of the old key into Arlo’s neck with all the strength in my body.

“Fuck!” He stumbled, loosening his grip as one hand went up to where the key was embedded in his neck.

“What?” Gray asked. He squinted at us through the dark and the rain. “What’s happening?”

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