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A few straggling partygoers out here barely glanced our way as we hustled toward the entrance to the school that I just knew they wanted us to go through. I hated playing their game, but at least out in the parking lot, I stood a much better chance at keeping them distracted so Azelie could leave than I did in here. Especially seeing as the school had been smartand shut the doors down either hallway that split away from the one we currently speedily walked down. If they were shut, I assumed they were locked, and there was no time to check as the three men darted out of the gym behind us.

Digging my hand into my pocket as we skirted around a corner where not another soul was, I snatched out the car keys Colette had let me borrow. “Here,” I said and pushed the keys into Azelie’s palm. Her eyebrows stitched together as she gathered up part of her skirt, and we started jogging.

“I don’t have a license,” she gasped as I let go of her arm and took note of a few stacked metal chairs pushed up against the wall near the entrance.

“I’ll pay whatever the fucking ticket fee is. You get out into that parking lot, and you run to the car. Don’t worry about me. Get in, and drive home. Got it?” I instructed as the men behind us picked up their pace. They were closing in on us.

“But—”

“Azelie, your mom is waiting. I’ve got this,” I reassured as we reached the front doors.

She nodded and shoved against the car, pushing the door open. I darted to the side, snatched a chair up, and turned around as she raced outside.

The three men skidded to a stop as I stood up straight, blocking their escape to Azelie.

Adrenaline prickled beneath my skin. Finally. I’d get to bash someone’s face—

A sharp pinch pierced the back of my arm. “The fuck?” I muttered and slid my hand around, grasping for whatever might have caused that. The world spun as the man in front of me cackled, and footsteps sounded behind me.

“The sedative will kick in, in just a few seconds,” the man behind me spoke.

And it hit me that I’d never heard the door shut after she’d pushed it open. Shit. I’d made this too easy for them. Every contingency that I’d been trained for, I’d ignored. I should’ve stayed with her. We should’ve left together. This was all my fault. I’d fucked up.

“Thank you, Doctor Brandt,” the greasy leader in front of me said as a fourth man walked out from behind me. His hooked nose appeared in my blurry peripheral first, followed by an unusually thin face hidden behind a pair of glasses that swamped his beady eyes and hid his light brown eyebrows.

The chair slid from my hands and clattered to the floor. “Azelie,” I gasped as my knees buckled, and I slammed against the hardwood floor.

Another cackle danced down the hallway as the tall and extremely thin doctor joined the other three men. “I thought you SEALs were supposed to be smart?” he said.

Not this one, apparently. I’d broken the one promise that should’ve never been destroyed.

“Don’t… Don’t…hurt…” I stammered as the world blurred and stars danced around me.

“DADDY!” Azelie’s scream pierced the silence, shattering any cage that held the grim reaper inside me at bay. But it was no use.

Iwas of no use. Everything turned black.

Chapter 34

FORD

My head spun as if I were experiencing the worst hangover of my life. With ringing ears, I groaned and attempted to pry my eyelids open. Like Velcro held them together, my lashes ripped and tore as I attempted to gather myself and figure out what was going on.

Through grated metal that made my teeth ring, a voice brought all of my senses alive at once. “This is taking too fucking long,” O’Connor grumbled, and a sharp burn split through my cheek.

I lurched backwards instinctively attempting to get away from the blade slicing through my skin, and cold chains clamped down tight around my wrists. The binds ripped my arms high above my head. My shoulders groaned against the weight of my body, but not enough force pulled me from kneeling on the dirty floor as I rocked forward to relieve some of the pressure.

“What’d—” I attempted to choke out and rolled my neck again as O’Connor squatted down in front of me. I scanned the room I was in.Surrounded by a few boxes and crates that looked empty and long since abandoned, the chain wrapped around my wrists ran through a hook lodged in a wooden beam running across the ceiling. It was secured at the other end of the room to four cinder blocks. Empty. Alone. Dust that had settled from years of abandonment in this grimy warehouse left my fate in the hands of the man in front of me.

“What happened?” I groaned. But I remembered. It flashed through my mind as quickly as I noted the lack of any windows and a single door over my shoulder in this small warehouse.

O’Connor slid the metal blade beneath my chin, and I looked up at his eyes that gleamed as if he’d already won. A single flickering yellow light bulb swung a few feet from a hook in a separate wooden beam, glinting off the knife tinged in my blood.

“What happened is exactly what I planned, just a few days early. You really think I needed to leave for business? You may have…put a dent in the amount of men I had brought with me here, but I quickly filled those empty slots without much necessary change.” He stood up and walked across the room.

I studied him but remained silent.

He patted the stack of cinder blocks keeping me hostage. “Honestly, I thought it would’ve been harder to get to this point, considering I had anticipated a lot more guns. What happened to you hillbillies and your love of weapons? Doesn’t everyone own one?”