Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I hope so.” Angel looked beyond hopeful. “Maybe I’m wrong about him. My feeling that he’s a really bad guy.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I wasn’t about to burst her bubble.
“Thank you, Dare. Thank you for getting my sister back.”
“It might not be for long. This situation? I don’t–”
“For tonight, whatever it is, for now, I’ll take it.”
I didn’t know what was next. I didn’t know what the fuck to make of Romero.
Holly would only say she loved Alessandro and wanted to know why he’d sent her away. I didn’t get it, any of it. I wanted to think maybe I was wrong that he was a bad guy. I felt it in my bones when I saw him. I felt a vibe in that place. A Kruna vibe. I hoped I was wrong.
We’d only seen one lounge-like room and then his private bedroom / quarters but the size of the compound, the lavishness of it?
For now at least, Holly was home with me. To go from wondering if I’d ever see her again to having her under the same roof? I was ecstatic.
I’d seen the look in Dare’s eye as we left and knew that we were on the same page. We’d figure out how to stop that guy from taking my baby sister. We’d stop him just like we’d stopped Kruna.
For now, get Holly home. Figure it all out later.
She was weepy and sad. She wasn’t rejoicing in being with us at all. Every time I told her something about Portland or about our place or the people in Dare’s family she’d meet, she’d give me a watery half-smile. She still had a face like someone had kicked her puppy with steel-toed boots on when I said goodnight.
After dinner with a few of the girls the night after we got home, a quiet dinner where Holly didn’t say much, but where Luc and Bianca’s chattiness made up for what would’ve been deafening silence, we left them to watch a movie at our place with Holly. Will Coulter also hung out. Will would be working full-time, for now, as Holly’s bodyguard.
Dare took me to the storage unit, the same building we’d gone to when we’d hidden at Luc and Eddy’s cottage. This time, Dare brought me in and took me to a unit that had a big wall of safes in it. He’d shut the garage-style door in the small unit at the end of a long hallway. There was a folding chair against the wall. He unfolded it and motioned for me to sit.
He wasn’t saying much, so at first, I thought it was business, but then he was so quiet and serious that I thought it was something fun, that he was going to surprise me somehow. But when he opened a safe and pulled out a smaller lock box and inside of it was a laptop, I got confused. He lifted it out and put it in my hands.
“What’s this?”
“This is Jason Frost’s computer. The hard drive is filled with videos of you. From Kruna.”
I didn’t drop it, but suddenly felt like I was holding a poisonous snake. Cold iciness flooded my body and I suddenly wanted to hurl it against the concrete wall.
“What do you want done? You want evidence in case anything ever comes back to bite us or you want this destroyed?”
“Have you watch–”
“No. Swear to you, I haven’t. No one else has, either.”
“Destroyed, please Dare,” I said softly.
He gave me a nod and there was a moment of heavily weighted silence between us until I heard a door slam and then multiple sets of feet walking as well as the sound of something rolling down the hallway.
“One sec, baby,” Dare said.
He opened the door and two men stood there with a very large metal drum that was on a dolly.
“JC,” Dare greeted.
“Dario.” The huge dark-haired guy dressed in head-to-toe leather shook Dare’s hand in a bro handshake. “This is Hugo.”
Hugo, an equally huge blond man extended his hand. Dare shook it.
“Hugo, JC, my wife, Angel.” Dare gestured to me.
“Hi,” I said.
They gave me a nod and carefully wheeled the dolly in and one reached into a black satchel and handed us long gloves and a mask/goggle contraption.
I was speechless.
Dare put his on and I put mine on.
The two men gave us nods and left, shutting the roll-down door behind them.
No further smiles nor pleasantries had been exchanged. Those guys were evidently aware of just how serious things were.
Dare used a utility knife to carefully pop the top off of the drum. Inside was a seal that he slowly peeled off. I stood. The drum had a strainer basket and below it I could see blue liquid but only at less than the half way mark. The inside was white, made of a different material than the outside.