Page 47 of Hunted Innocence

Sure, I come from complete and total trash, but if anyone were going to break me, it would have been those people lying dead on the floor when I was a child.

I am unbreakable, just like Brody.

Landon will have to kill me to break me because as long as I breathe, I will not be broken. Not by him and his sick and twisted shit.

He doesn’t stop his assault. With the barrel of the gun pressed against my temple, he continues. I look into his eyes, trying not to give him anything, but I know that my hate and disgust show, which only fuels him to do more, to go further.

And he does.

His fingers flex around my throat, squeezing harder. Then stars begin to burst, and darkness begins to consume my vision all at the same time. As much as I want to believe that I am physically strong enough to withstand whatever this man dishes out to me, I am not.

Everything around me begins to go dark, and I know from past experience that I’m about to black out. I also know from past experience that this man is going to use my body in ways unimaginable after I am unconscious, too. He’s going to wake me up and do it all over again as punishment for passing out in the first place.

Chapter Twenty

GRAYSON

The motorcycles stopdown the street, about six houses from our destination. Theron does not stop the car. He creeps up to the address, killing his lights before he pulls into the driveway and kills the engine.

The lights shine through the blinds in the front room. They’re in there. Nadine is in there. I haven’t been able to look at the phone again. In fact, I ended the call as soon as I climbed into the car because I didn’t want that fuck to know that we were on to him.

I wish I had time to look at the contents of the thumb drive, but Nadine is far more important than a goddamn thumb drive even if I think I am going to find some seriously damming information about a lot of very powerful people.

Landon Tate wouldn’t want it so bad if it weren’t chock-full of powerful men in compromising positions.

“Are you ready?” Theron asks as he turns his head and looks over his shoulder at me.

My gaze shifts from the lit front room to him. Jerking my chin, I don’t bother saying anything. He knows I’m ready. There is no reason to verbalize a fucking thing. I’m not sure why, but he doesn’t move immediately, almost as if he’s waiting for my verbal confirmation.

“Theron?” I ask.

He smirks. “The guys are almost here. As much as I know we can go in there and take care of this fucker, at the same time, I don’t want to take the opportunity away from Orion and the Devils because I know they are feeling much like we are.”

My initial reaction is to tell him to fuck off and storm that house alone. However, he’s right, and if we want to keep our working relationship intact, I should wait for them. We should do this together—united.

They saved Merrick and Colette’s lives.

As much as I want to beat the shit out of Merrick right now, he is still my brother and human. Mistakes are made, and as I looked at that footage, I’m not sure I would have been able to protect Nadine, even if I knew about everything that happened in real time.

My phone rings just as Theron opens the driver’s door. I look down at the screen, and my brow arches.

Think of the devil.

It’s Merrick.

“Merrick,” I say after sliding my thumb across the screen.

He doesn’t speak immediately, and as willing to forgive him for what happened as I am, I also don't want to hash anything out right now. And we will have to hash things out, because there is no way I can just let this go. He wouldn’t if the tables were turned, and he knows it.

“Hale just called me,” he announces.

I’m not sure why the fuck I’m interested in that bit of knowledge, but I wait him out because he thought this wasimportant enough to call me about when he knows I’m here trying to get my woman back and home.

“He’s on his way back from the coast. He said he has information on Tate.”

I open my mouth to ask him what kind of information he could possibly have, but thankfully, he continues quickly.

“We need him alive. I think what Hale has information on is going to fuck Tate up, but not just him, some very powerful people as well. Tate is nothing more than a procurer. His only job was to collect insurance, and he fucked it up. He’s more afraid of that thumb drive getting out than he is of anything else in the whole world. The only reason he was even under investigation was that he had overstayed his position, and the higher-ups wanted him gone.”

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