Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
My ears ring, my brain registering his meaning, terror rising inside me. It’s like I’ve gone back in time five years. Five years and I’m that girl with her mother, both of us terrified. That girl alone in a dark room in an old cellar hearing things no child should hear. No adult should hear.
“Get her out of my sight!” Malek commands and Rami carries me out kicking and screaming, dragging me down the once-grand staircase to the other stairs. The ones that lead down to the cellar. I grab hold of the railing as we go, gripping it as I’m forced down, rage having morphed into terror, the terror of a fifteen-year-old girl as I smell the damp earth air. It’s so dark down here. I had forgotten how fucking dark. I crane my neck to watch as Rami pulls the little chain on the lightbulb just outside that metal door.
“No! No. No. No. No!” I kick wildly, manage to slam my fist into the side of his head, but he is unstoppable. He drags the heavy, creaking door open and when he hurls me inside, I scramble fast to my feet and run. I want out. I want out of this house of horrors. This house of death.
But I don’t get away. Of course I don’t. He catches me easily, laughs as he shoves me hard, sending me to the ground, my head bouncing off it. The room spins, and by the time I’m able to raise my head and look to the door, to the only light just beyond it, I see his face, his wide grin and watch the slamming of the metal door, the sound echoing, haunting, carrying me back in time. Back to those nights. Back to my own personal hell.
2
CASSIAN
I’m going to murder someone.
I lean on the horn and swerve onto the shoulder, screaming at the cars to get the fuck out of my way. I refresh the screen trying to get Enzo’s location, but it just searches and searches and fucking searches.
Someone honks at me, and I curse as I swerve, narrowly avoiding crashing into the other car. I flip him off as I press the gas pedal to get off at the next exit. Behind me a lime green Porsche SUV comes into view, the SUV with the soldiers stuck farther back. It’s Jet and when the lights of another vehicle shine on it, I see his face through the windshield.
I’m just getting ready to push the button to call Enzo yet again when my phone lights up just before it rings, an unfamiliar number on the screen, a name I don’t recognize. My heart drops to my stomach. I slide to answer.
“Cassian,” Enzo’s voice comes, sounding strained and out of breath.
“Enzo?”
“Yeah. Fuck. It’s me.”
“Where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you—”
“I’m sorry, I know. Shit.”
“Allegra. Is she with you?” I ask even though I know the answer. I know.
“My phone’s shot to shit. Fuck. Exit 42,” he manages.
I look up. I’m at exit 40 and traffic is bumper to fucking bumper. I swerve off to take the surface road. It’s got to be faster than this.
“Allegra?” I say again.
“She’s... Her brother—”
“Her brother?” I ask, the car pushing its maximum, Jet behind me, the SUV following him. “I don’t care about—”
“He’s dead, Cassian. He’s dead.”
“What?” I’m sure I heard wrong.
“I’m looking at his body. Exit 42. We’re on the surface road.”
“I’m on my way.”
I disconnect. Michael Moretti is dead?
It takes me almost twenty more minutes to exit the highway and get to where I see the flashing lights of emergency workers. I slow as I make out the burnt-out carcasses of what must be four SUVs that collided head on.
They were ambushed.
My heart is in my fucking stomach. Are they mine? Was one carrying Allegra?
No. It couldn’t be. Enzo would be in there with her. He’d be dead with her.
Fuck.
Jesus.
Fuck!
I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles are white. A policeman stands at the barricade holding out a hand to signal me to stop. I do and get out of the car.
“The road is closed. You’ll have to turn around.”
I look beyond him to see Enzo walking toward me, hand on his side, blood on his face. Nearby I hear the sirens of an approaching ambulance.
“Cassian,” Enzo starts and just as he does, Jet comes up beside me. He glances at Enzo, takes in his injuries, looks at the wreck of cars beyond the barricade, his forehead creased.
“Officer,” he starts, drawing the policeman’s attention so I’m able to slip under the police tape.
“You’re shot?” I look at the blood on his hand.
“No. I’m fine. Just knocked out.”
From the look of his injuries, he’ll still need stitching.
“Allegra?” I ask.
“They must have taken her. I looked for her when I came to.”