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Only one thought pulses through my skull, louder than my heartbeat, louder than the silence around us:
I’m coming for you, Max.
And I’ll reduce this goddamn city to ashes to bring you home.
41
SAXON
The SUV growls as it eats up the asphalt, tires hissing like they’re just as pissed off as the rest of us. Rage rides shotgun tonight, thick in the air, simmering in every breath.
Zack’s in the back seat—zip-tied, lip split, blood crusting down the side of his face. He’s trying to posture, to keep that smug little grin intact, but it’s cracked at the edges. He can feel it. The fury. The weight of it as it settles in the space between us.
I ride beside Lucky, who drives like a demon in a suit—hands white-knuckled on the wheel, jaw clenched, eyes burning straight ahead. He hasn’t said a word since we left the bar, but his silence is louder than gunfire.
In the rearview, I catch a glimpse of Mason. His face looks like it’s carved from granite. Hollowed out by fury. That’s not the face of a man looking for answers. That’s the face of a man looking to burn down everything that stands between him and his daughter.
“Pull over,” Mason says, voice low. Too calm.
Lucky doesn’t glance back. “We’re five minutes out.”
“I said pull the fuck over.”
I twist in my seat, eyes flicking to Mason in warning. “Mason?—”
Too late.
Zack shifts in his seat—just a small, nervous twitch—but it’s the wrong move. A stupid move. Because Mason sees it. And in that split second, all the restraint he’s been barely clinging to snaps like brittle bone. That one twitch is enough to bring it all back—the bruises on Maxine’s body, the fear in her voice, the not knowing. It hits Mason like a freight train. Every second we sit here talking while she’s gone again is a second too long.
Mason doesn’t speak. He lunges. In a blink, he’s on Zack, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the SUV door with the kind of force that comes from pure, undiluted ferocity. His fist cocks back, ready to break bone.
Zack chokes out something-I can’t tell what it is, and Mason doesn’t seem to care, because in his mind, this isn’t just Zack. It’s every man who’s ever laid hands on a woman for sport. It’s every nightmare Maxine’s too afraid to share with him.
And right now? Mason wants him to feel it.
The SUV jerks hard as Lucky tries to keep us on the road. Mason’s got a fist around Zack’s throat, slamming him against the door like he’s trying to push him through it.
“You took her,” Mason snarls. “You touched her. You looked at her.”
Zack gasps, his face turning crimson, eyes bulging. Mason doesn’t let up.
“You have any idea what she means to this family? What she means tomy daughter?”
Zack tries to jerk away, but Mason’s fist drives into his face. Once. Twice. Bone cracks. Blood flies. The SUV screeches to a stop.
I’m out of my seat in a flash, wrenching the back door open. I reach for Mason, but catch an elbow to the gut for my trouble.Another punch. More blood. It paints the window in jagged red streaks. A grotesque masterpiece.
For one fractured second, I almost let it continue. But then I snap back into myself. I grab Mason by the shoulders and rip him off Zack with everything I’ve got.
“We need him breathing,” I hiss.
Zack slumps forward, gasping, face already swelling, blood spilling down his chin. “Fuck you,” he coughs. “You can kill me and I still wouldn’t tell you where she is.”
I yank him out of the SUV and throw him to the dirt. The night roars above us—sky black and swollen with thunderclouds, lightning flashing like camera bulbs before an execution.
Zack tries to crawl away. Mason kicks him hard in the ribs.
He coughs blood into the dust. “You’re all fucking insane.”