Page 61 of A Captive Situation

Me: I have two cousins in Presbyterian. Crispin and Penn. I believe you’re familiar with them. Go through them to contact my uncle. You pick the time and place. Uncle Toby knows a representative will be reaching out on my behalf.

Ashton: Your cousins are patients there?

Me: Yes. They were assaulted. Someone decided to beat the shit out of them instead of killing both.

Ashton: Someone?

Me: Just go there, use Crispin’s phone. Neither of them have reached out to their father. I don’t know the reason for that, but you can get a hold of Uncle Toby for the meet that way.

Ashton: Got it.

Ashton blackmailed me when we first met. It was how I began giving him information.

We’d come a long way since then, but I wasn’t kidding myself. There was a very real possibility Ashton and I would stare at each other on the opposite ends of a gun one day.

That day just hadn’t come yet.

Another text came through from him, one that I responded to withnohesitation.

Ashton: Are you sure about this?

Me: One hundred.

Easiest text I’d sent in a long while.

Chapter Twenty-One

Jake

They were laughing, shouting, or crying through the entire night. And based on hearing all the glasses that were clinking, they were also getting lit downstairs. The doorbell rang at one point, and I moved closer to the door in case it was someone coming for the contract.

It wasn’t.

The pizza aroma was the first giveaway. The second was when the husband exclaimed, “It’s Napoli’s!”

There was a gushing conversation about the place, which led to another conversation about the proper way to eat a slice. Clara was down for the fold. Bess was arguing that it needed to be rolled. I was listening for Sawyer’s way of eating it, but she was quiet. Graham was giving Oliver crap about taking the cheese off his slice.

The dogs were barking, asking for their own slices.

I was standing up here like a fucking creeper, knowing there was a legit reason for my stalking, but I had to admit that it was nice to hear these people. They were family. There was a warmth to their entire evening’s chatter, with concern tinged underneath it. There were a fewawkward silences, but I had to hand it to Sawyer. She said this was why she came to the city. It was a whole deflection so she didn’t need to focus on the real loss in her life, but she’d done it. Graham had been brought back into her family, and judging by how her aunts were talking, they weren’t letting him go. He was in and there was no option of not being in.

It was now nearing midnight when they began saying good night.

I slipped into Sawyer’s bathroom briefly before taking my position once again. If something was going to happen, it would happen now. The guys who were willing to grab Sawyer to kill me would not care if other people were in this house.

Sawyer stumbled to her room twenty minutes later, her gait a little jerky and her foot heavy. She pushed open her door and stopped just inside the doorframe. “Whoa.”

“What?”

I pulled the closet door closed and eased farther back in the closet at hearing a male voice. He’d accompanied her.

“Whoa. This is so weird. It smells like ...”

“What does it smell like?” He drew in an audible breath. “That’s probably Oliver. He’s been trying new deodorants. He was up here this morning to put fresh sheets on your bed. He must’ve come up here again to check on your room.”

“That makes sense.”

No, it didn’t. She was smelling me. And she knew it.

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