Page 51 of All Tied Up
Huck raised his brows. “You don’t think so?”
“He put a bullet in his stepsister,” I said, pointing out just how heartless the man was.
Huck nodded. “He did. But he’d let her live after she took Maddy and handed her to strangers.”
Yeah, I knew the story, and that didn’t make him reasonable.
“Those strangers were working for Maddy’s father. The one she didn’t know she had. ” I said with a trace of sarcasm in my tone.
Maddy, Blaise’s wife, had never been in danger when she was handed over to the members of the Judgment MC.
“Point made,” he agreed. “But let me ask you this. What if a female took Noa, broke her arm, terrorized her? What would you do?”
“I’d kill her.”
His almost smile was smug. “Exactly. And Levi would have done it if Blaise hadn’t. Blaise did what had to be done for the family. Gina wasn’t going to stop. She was obsessed with Levi, and as long as she was alive, Aspen wasn’t safe.”
Aspen was Levi’s wife. I hadn’t realized Gina, Blaise Hughes former step-sister, had broken Aspen’s arm and terrorized her. I just knew she’d taken her from where she worked. Linc hadn’t given us any real details, but he had to have known. Levi was his son.
Huck stretched and stood back up. “Blaise is ruthless. He protects his name and power. But,” he said, leveling me with his gaze, “part of that power is ruling with a fair hand inside the family. You still have a chance of walking out of here.”
I didn’t respond. I was currently strung up and in the caves. And if I couldn’t have Noa, then I wasn’t sure leaving was worth it.
Huck picked up the bottle of water he’d placed on the table and opened it, then walked over to me. “Drink the damn water, Carver.”
I glared at him, then opened my mouth, and he poured some inside. At least it would be easier to swallow now that it didn’t feel as if I’d been eating cotton.
Twenty-Four
Noa
The paper trembled in my hand as I stood, staring down at it. Rereading the words over and over. Each time more difficult than the time before.
When I’d awoken alone, I’d thought for a moment that Ransom had stepped out to get something. I couldn’t believe he’d just left me. He’d promised Jellie he would get me home—not that I needed him to get home, but still. He hadn’t said he was leaving.
His underwear—the black boxer briefs—was still tossed on the floor by the sofa, where he’d taken them off last night. He wouldn’t have left without wearing his underwear.
I’d gotten up and used the supplies in the bathroom that the hotel had left out to brush my teeth with some mouthwash and a cotton swab, then swooshed the rest around in my mouth. I even washed my face and used the restroom. When thirty minutes passed, I walked to stare out the window at the streetbelow, wondering if he’d gone to pick up something special for breakfast and gotten caught up in the still-crowded streets.
I turned around to see if there was a bottle of water in the refrigerator, and it was then that I noticed the pad of paper on the desk had writing on it. My heart sank. I knew without looking that he hadn’t stepped out.
He’d left me. Again.
Forever has no time frame. You own my soul in this life and the ones to come.
—Ransom
What did this mean? The more I read it, the more it sounded as if … as if … he hadn’t gone because he wanted to.
His underwear had been left behind. My imagination, being elaborate, had many different scenarios running through my mind, and each one seemed to be more unthinkable than the next.
I had no way to contact him. No number. Nothing.
Fear crawled up my spine slowly, and my stomach knotted so tightly that I felt nauseated.
Oh God. What if something bad had happened to him? He’d rushed out without his boxers. They were in plain sight. He hadn’t overlooked them. Was he on the run?
I started to put the note down, but I couldn’t let go of it. He’d touched it. Written this to me. Holding it felt like I had some connection to him. Right now, this was all I had. Gently, I folded it and held it in my hand.
