Page 37 of Magnetic Temptations

“Watch,” Gunner issues, his eyes never straying from his daughter.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

MANE

I know by the growls Mason is releasing that he’s not a happy camper with me right now, but this is what they brought me in to do. I’m the only one out of us with any experience dealing with psychopaths.

“In a way, Benji, you are like your parents,” I insist.

“No I’m not,” he denies.

“Yeah, Benji. You are. They set out to hurt you, to demean you, to steal your future from you. Isn’t that the same thing you’re doing to Myles? He’s innocent, he’s never done anything to hurt you. Has he?”

“No. But he is related to him,” Benji says, his head bobbing in Mason’s direction.

“He is,” I confirm. “But again, Mason didn’t do anything to you.”

Apparently, reasoning with him isn’t possible because his entire being begins to vibrate. “He took Julia away from me!”

While everyone around me scoffs at his answer, I remain silent. His feelings may be whacked as hell, but they’re still valid. Plus, I’m hoping I can get answers from him. Maybe he’ll let something slip that’ll give Jagger and Judd a lead.

“How?” I question. “Give me a reasonable response, Benji. Not one out of anger, but a truthful reason.”

“He used her. Made her think that he cared about her. He didn’t give a shit about her!” Benji shouts.

“I didn’t lead her on!” Mason yells. “We went on two dates. Two, Ben. She read more into it than anything. I tried to stay friends with her, help her, but she took it to extremes. She killed people for simply being a friend to me. If they hung around me, they were a target in her eyes. She was whacked. She didn’t comprehend friendship, always wanting more than what was offered to her. That’s her fault, not mine.”

“You’re lying! She told me, Mason.”

“What did she tell you, Benji?” I continue probing. Eventually, he’s going to slip and give us the information we need.

“I hate you. All of you!” he spits, squinting his eyes at me. “Get away from me, you slut. You’ll never get anything from me.”

A murmur from Laura has me shifting gears and walking to her. “Do you have something to tell us, Laura?”

She nods her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Do you know where Myles is?”

Again, she nods but the shouts from Benji have her curling in on herself as much as she can through her bindings.

“Shut him up,” I demand as I step forward, removing her gag. “He can’t hurt you, Laura. You’re safe to tell us where Myles is. We’ll protect you.” I feel like an asshole lying to her, because no matter what she says she’ll never walk out of here.

Wanting to appear as if I’m on her side, I lift my hands up and gently remove the bandana from her mouth. I send her an encouraging smile and she flops her head forward, a defeated and accepted sigh escaping her before she lifts her head back up and gives me a shaky, watery smile.

“Tell us what you know, Laura,” I persist, not wanting to give her time to mull things over and back out.

“All I can tell you is that he’s in some sort of underground chamber. I think he said something about the old mill,” she conveys.

“We checked there,” Hydro states. “There was no underground chamber.”

“You won’t be able to find it unless you know where the hidden latch and room is,” Laura acknowledges. “It isn’t on the blueprints because the mill added it last minute. They were going to make it their new boiler room, but then they had to shut down and it never got completed.”

“So there’d be no record of it because that paperwork doesn’t make it to the county archives nor does it get filed through the clerk until the job is one-hundred percent complete and has passed inspection,” Judd addresses.

“What do you know about its hidden location, Laura?” my dad probes.

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