Page 194 of Keeping Kasey
On one hand, it’s the best middle finger I can imagine.
On the other hand, it means I’m on my own.
This makestwicethat the Diaz family has found me when I should’ve been untraceable. None of my electronics can be tracked, and I have a dozen safety measures that would alert me if they’d been compromised.
I run the possibilities through my head, but there’s nothing feasible. I’d consider that someone in the Consoli family acted as a rat, but that wouldn’t explain how they knew my exact location, even when I was across the country.
The only remotely possible option is that someone from the Diaz family has been following my every step for months. I just can’t imagine how something like that could go on for so long without me catching on to it.
I have to be missing something.
Any hope I have of memorizing the landscape is absolutely useless. Endless trees span either side of the road, which I can barely see through the snow. I can’t remember the last time I saw a sign or another car.
Wherever they’re taking me, it’s not easily found or escaped.
When Emilio turns onto an unmarked road covered in snow, I realize how much I let myself relax in the car, knowing they wouldn’t do anything to me until we reached our destination.
But we’re here now, and I am terrified of whatever is waiting for me. I ball my hands into fists, but it doesn’t stop the shaking.
I make the mistake of lifting my eyes, and they lock with Emilio’s, who can no doubt sense my dread as it fills the car.There’s a cruel glint in his eyes, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
We drive another mile, and through the blizzard-like snow, I can make out the outline of a cabin. The form gets clearer the closer we get, and the building is so small I can’t imagine—even from this distance—that it’s more than one or two rooms. I also notice another white truck and an old, beat-up sedan parked outside.
Emilio parks next to them.
“Get out,” he barks, and his men get out.
A freezing blast of air fills the car, and I curse under my breath, specifically pissed that no one let me grab my jacket before kidnapping me.
I wish being in the car alone with Emilio improved my odds, but it doesn’t. I’m restrained in the back, he’s armed in the front, and outside is a freezing wasteland I couldn’t survive even if I knew exactly where to go.
I’d freeze to death halfway down the driveway.
“You should’ve brought me that list,” Emilio says in an easy tone.
“How did you find me?” I ask. It’s the only information I have a shot at getting, and I will take every chance I have to get it.
“If you have another way to get it, you need to tell me now. Otherwise, things are about to get very messy. You can still save yourself here.”
The words seem generous enough, but there’s nothing charitable about Emilio’s offer.
“Even if I could get you that list, I would never betray the Consolis.”
Emilio nods. “In that case, the only advice I will offer you is to stay quiet. My cousin is… old-fashioned. He doesn’t respond well to disrespect of any kind.”
“How did you find me?” I ask in a slow, deliberate tone.
“Really, I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet,” he says with a laugh. “You’re so cautious about trackers. It’s probably the one place you never thought someone would tag you.”
It’s in the knowing stare through the rearview mirror that I somehow make the connection.
A nurse with short dark hair…
I look down at my left arm.
“You had a trackerinjected into me?”
The nurse had come into my room after Brandon attacked me and given me a shot, claiming to be some antibiotic. Whoever she was, she worked for Diaz, and they’ve been able to track my every move since.
