Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Happy to help. Also happy to relieve you of a ticket or two. When am I picking the ankle biters up from school? Am I dropping them off there tomorrow too?
He was a godsend, as always. Now I could make dinner plans for Alfie and me. We needed to talk things through properly tonight, so I wouldn’t be a walking train wreck tomorrow.
“And you’re sure he knows the address?” Shan pressed.
His conversation was definitely not going as well as mine with Phil. I thanked him for helping out, gave him the information he needed, and promised to stop by with bagels tomorrow morning when we picked up the children. Well, Alfie would. I’d be at work.
“All right, thank you for letting me know,” Shan said. “Keep trying to reach Kellan and Finn.” He ended the call and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I may have spoken too soon about Alfie.”
Excuse me?
He faced me and looked a lot more tired than before. “Colby was shadowing Eric today at Finn’s office, and the boy essentially spent the morning trying to find more evidence from the attackers. Which…he did.”
He didn’t need to elaborate further. Colby had found more videos, hadn’t he?
I clenched my jaw and rubbed a hand over my mouth. “There’s a video of Giulia, isn’t there?”
He inclined his head. “And he told Alfie about it. Who, in turn, demanded to see the video.”
Oh Christ, no.
I went rigid as something Shan had said came back to me, about knowing an address…? Was that about Alfie?
“Where is he now?” I demanded, alarm shooting through me.
He sighed and got off the stool. “He’s on his way to the safehouse—and I don’t suppose I need to ask if you’re coming with me.”
Absolutely not. We should be in the car already.
Please don’t do something you can’t live with, baby.
“I’ll drive.” I stalked out of the kitchen.
“No, you’re not. I can already tell you’re about to break every speed limit on the way.”
I threw him a glare over my shoulder. “Now’s not the time to preach about being a law-abiding citizen.”
“You don’t speed toward a crime scene, West. I’m driving. Besides, your car is like a book with a stunning cover and blank pages. There’s barely any power under the hood.”
CHAPTER 22
Alfie Scott
“Please stop! P-please!”
I floored it once the traffic cleared, and I gnashed my teeth as Mom’s choked pleas went on a loop in my brain.
“I can’t br-breathe…”
I’d be there in twenty-seven minutes, according to the GPS.
Let’s make that ten minutes.
Or you can at least try to appear inconspicuous. Don’t raise any red flags or get the attention of the cops, moron.
“Fuck.” I took another drag from my smoke and slowed down a little.
A little.
“Help me!”
My vision blurred, and it took all my strength not to push it past seventy, which was already too fast.
I tried to think about West, too, and the kids, but my mind was flooded with Mom’s nightmares. Now I knew what she relived every night when she went to bed. Now I knew what’d happened in the nineteen minutes she’d been brutally beaten—and someone had filmed it. Nineteen minutes of kicks and punches to her body. She’d been dragged down an alley, thrown around, and abused till she’d coughed up blood.
Colby and Eric had found all the videos. Not just the “free previews” either. All of it.
Now they’d start tracking down the seventy-four buyers.
I was going after the, uh…the creators.
I checked the rearview and threw the smoke out the window.
My phone rang, and I let it go to voice mail again.
Once I got off 309, I managed to pay more attention. I’d never actually been to the locations we had up here before, but I had to assume I was going to the house at the end of a very long dirt road where nobody could hear you scream.
Chase and whatever Mikey was involved had been cleared to leave, so I only had to worry about Bran. He was on guard duty until tomorrow when Kellan and I were originally supposed to come.
Nobody’s cover had been blown. No faces, nothing connecting the Sons to whatever was going on, and the police had no idea that the two missing persons in Pennsport were also the main suspects in Mom’s assault. They hadn’t puzzled those pieces together yet. Aside from one Detective Reid Hanna, who preferred it when we settled assault cases for them.
When I’d forced Colby to show me the video, the worst part hadn’t been hearing her beg for someone to save her. It was the sounds I couldn’t even begin to describe. Toward the end of the video, when she was gasping for air, that sheer desperation in every wheezing sound, the choking up…
And finally, a low, throaty chuckle from a man who was breathless.
He’d never chuckle again.
I finally reached the dirt road, and I looked around before I turned.