Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I try to remain calm. “Let me go.”
But he’s only getting started.
“I’ve worked too hard and too long on this, and no one is going to stop me from taking him down. Not him. Not you. Not the fucking law. I will do whatever it takes. Say whatever it takes. Lie through my fucking teeth, if that’s what it takes.”
My eyes widen. “You’ll make it up?”
I don’t know why I’m surprised. Michaels is clearly obsessed and desperate. Not to mention, unhinged.
His lips pull back in a sneer. “My whole life I’ve watched men like him get what they want, and when they want it. And if it doesn’t come easy to them, they just take it. The job. The opportunity. The homecoming queen.”
“Is that what this is about? You didn’t get the pretty girl in high school?”
He squeezes my wrists tighter, making me wince.
“You want to have your baby in prison? Because if you walk away I will make sure that happens. And you know what else I’ll do? I’ll make sure you never see it. Now tell me what the fuck I want to know, or so help me God, that bastard baby in your womb will never know either of its parents.”
I wrench my wrists free.
“Do you get off on trying to intimidate pregnant woman, asshole?” I snap, rubbing my wrists. “Stay away from me or I will make a formal complaint.”
With my pulse pounding in my ears, I slide out of the booth and start to walk away.
He calls out. “He’ll go down, Brooke. And I’ll make sure it hurts you.”
But I keep walking away and disappear out of the diner.
24
LEV
“You look like you haven’t slept,” Feliks says, walking into my study.
It’s early afternoon, and I’m running on adrenaline and caffeine. My fourth cup of coffee sits half-finished in front of me.
“I got a couple of hours.” It’s a lie. I got nothing but a night spent tossing and turning in my bed while sleep eluded me. “Any update from your men posted outside her motel room?”
He holds up the folder in his hand, and by his expression, I know it’s not going to be good news.
“You need to see these,” he says, placing the file on my desk.
“What are they?”
“Seems your shadow has been making contact with Brooke more times than you thought.”
I let out a rough breath.
My shadow. Of course, he’s involved in this somehow.
I open the file. The first series of security camera photos are of Brooke and Agent Michaels talking at the hospital. The second series of photos are of the two of them again, clearly on a different day, and it looks like they’re at the hospital again. But Michaels has his arm around Brooke, and it looks like she’s burying her face into his shoulder.
They appear very cozy.
My hands curl into fists on the desk. I squeeze them so tight my fingernails pinch into my skin, and my knuckles glow white.
She’s in his fucking arms.
“What the fuck is this?” I growl.
“It’s what it looks like, Lev. Brooke was meeting with Agent Michaels at the hospital.”
Inside me, the possessive monster wakes up and roars.
Feliks looks empathetic. “I don’t want to say it—”
“Then don’t,” I snarl, hating the thought that Brooke might’ve betrayed me to Michaels, feeding him information about me and the bratva.
“I don’t like it any more than you do. I love Brooke. But look at the photos, Lev. Is it such a stretch to think that she exchanged information so he would help her escape?”
“She stowed away in the back of a food truck and had her friend pay for a motel room. If Michaels was helping her, then he’s doing a shit job.” I look at the photos, hating the churning in my gut.
“There’s more.”
My eyes dart from the photo to Feliks. “What?”
He sorts through the photos until he finds a set taken this morning. It’s of Brooke and Agent Michaels talking in a diner.
My gut twists painfully.
Feliks removes a letter from his suit pocket. “And this also came through this late this morning.”
It’s a notification of a denied parole application. I’m about to ask what it has to do with any of this when I see the name on the application. Todd Bastik. The man who was put away for Brooke’s parents’ deaths. He was eligible for parole. But today, the board denied it.
And now Brooke is missing.
“Reach out to our contact in the justice department. Ask him what swayed the parole board’s decision to deny that fucker his freedom.”
“I already did. Apparently, a certain FBI agent wormed his way into their ears. Well, according to talk around the water cooler.”
I feel Feliks hesitate.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
“Our contact also confirmed someone is definitely talking to the FBI. Someone in our circle. I’m sorry, Cousin, but it can only be her.”