Page 36 of Bought

“I was never good at love,” he smirks to himself. “But Emma made it feel easy. I loved her. And you know what she did?”

“Betrayed you?” I answer in a soft voice.

“Clever girl,” he says bitterly. “So fucking clever. She was smart too. I was going to ask her to marry me the night I found out what she’d really been doing. Stealing Vipyr code. Selling it to other companies. Industrial espionage.”

“Is that it?”

That was the wrong thing to say. I know it the minute it comes out of my mouth.

“She fucking lied to me about everything,” he snarls like a feral animal. His hand is shaking so hard I’m afraid the gun is going to go off. “Women always lie.”

“Ethan kidnapped me, took me to a police station, and beat my ass for trying to stop you harvesting data,” I say, starting to get equally impassioned. “And yes, I am trying to stop him, but I’m not fucking lying about anything.”

It’s not a good idea to yell at an unstable man with a gun, but adrenaline does crazy things. He’s removed the option for flight. I have a cliff behind me, and a gun in front of me. That means I’ll fight with my words until that thing goes off.

“You took the bait,” Jack growls back. “I set a trap only a traitor would take.”

“I’m not a fucking traitor. I’m a prisoner!”

“Then I’ll be the one to set you free.”

“Asshole.”

Calling him names. Another terrible idea, but really, fuck everything about this.

“I’m sorry someone screwed you over, Jack. But that’s life. I’ve spent the last week getting my ass handed to me every damn day, but I’m not going to drive anyone to a cliff and threaten to shoot them over it. For fuck’s sake.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Jack shouts at me, spittle flying from his lips. “Shut the fuck up, Emma! You fucking whore!”

And that’s when I realize he really isn’t all there.

“Not this time, Emma,” he says, gripping the gun with both hands. “You won’t hurt me this time.”

Wwweeeeeeooooooo Wweeeeeooooo Eeeeeeooo!

The night suddenly explodes into lights and sirens. One moment it is just Jack and me up there on the precipice, the next it seems as though a dozen cruisers have materialized. They must have come up slowly, without lights or sirens. They must have been creeping through the night, a pack of hunters looking for a beast to bring down.

Now the area is bathed in red and blue. Now it is Jack who suddenly looks small. In a moment of pure panic he rushes toward me, grabs me, pulls me against his chest and sticks the gun hard against my head. That hard little barrel could do so much damage if his finger squeezes that trigger a little too hard.

“How the fuck did you get here?” He’s shrieking the question at a figure emerging from the red and blue haze.

Ethan. Always Ethan.

“Put the gun down, Jack. And hand her over.”

Jack yanks me back a step. Now there are inches between the pair of us and eternity. Ethan is here, but I am not safe. I am not saved. Not yet.

“Tell me the fuck how you found me!” Jack is garbling his words in shock.

“I did find the phone,” Ethan says grimly. “I switched it out for another one, swapped the sim card out. I didn’t expect this to go down in the middle of the night, but…” He looks at me and I feel enough guilt to swallow me whole. “We got here in time.”

“Really? Because seems to me you got here far too late,” Jack says. He still has the gun to my temple. At any moment my world could still end.

“Don’t be stupid, Jack. Let her go. We can deal with this.”

“You think I’m fucking stupid?” Jack’s voice shakes with outrage. “You’re the one keeping a girl around who wants to destroy you. This little bitch doesn’t give a fuck about you, Ethan. I was trying to help you. She needs to be gotten rid of.”

The fucked-up thing is, Jack is right. I was trying to destroy Ethan. And Jack. And Vipyr. If there really is this much at stake, getting rid of me makes sense. I’ve refused to be paid off. I’ve refused to be subdued. I’ve proved myself to be an enemy at every turn. I don’t want to die, but I can’t blame Jack for wanting to kill me.

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