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“And your, well…” O’Connor paused and tipped his head with a furrowed brow. “I guess what would’ve eventually become your in-laws, except there won’t be a daughter for you to marry and no granddaughter left for you to have any connection to them.”

No words. There was not a single word in any language that would encompass the rage and simultaneous failure that coursed thick through my veins. All hope, that blissful peace I’d been temporarily dancing in, became a restless dream I walked alone. A halo of darkness settled over the light that had once blazed endlessly within my mind as I imagined just what life was going to be like now that I had Colette left.

“Please, no,” I quietly begged and glanced back at the screen.

Colette’s shoulders trembled as her body crumpled a little more forward. Tears slipped off Azelie’s cheeks, and she raised her head briefly. The muzzle of a gun shoved her back down, and a soft whimper of desperation left her lips.

The fear that had held me in a daze shot away as quickly as the silence that clouded my mind with nothing but the grim reaper barking at the cage. I tipped my head back and studied the hook in the beam above me.

“And how do you expect to get away with this?” I asked as a guttural chuckle full of what little self-control I had left bubbled in my throat.

“What?” O’Connor asked, and I shot a steely gaze in his direction.

“Two dead bodies with me, my parents, my mawmaw, and yes, those people that call themselves Colette’s parents as witness to your torture and murders? How do you expect to get away?” I tugged at the thick, metal links looped around my wrist, and the hook in the ceiling groaned softly.

O’Connor closed his eyes and smiled to himself. “There was a point to buying up all the things I had. Money buys. And with all the money and power I have, I’ve chartered myself a cushy little flight to one of those beautiful countries that don’t have any extradition treaties with the United States.” His shoulders dropped as he looked back at me.

“You know, it just dawned on me,” he added.

“What’s that?” I asked as my heart raced in my chest. With a tingle along my elbows, the familiar sign of adrenaline finally made its appearance. I only lost myself for a moment, but the real Ford, the one who’d spent fifteen years honing the skill of dealing death at a moment’s notice, had never truly left.

“You don’t have that luxury, do you?” He ripped the knife from the box and stepped toward me. “I truly am a lucky man. It’ll be so easy to pin this on a Navy SEAL who got rejected by the woman he loves, and went into a fit of rage where he murdered the woman who turned him down and their daughter.”

O’Connor squatted down in front of me and dragged the flat end of the blade across my cheek. Blood from the wound painted the knife as he pulled it away and stood up. Pacing back across the room, he stopped beside the stack of cinder blocks and leaned against the concrete.

“Well, I better get started since the State Police will be here in the morning.” O’Connor leaned his head back and laughed a maniacal laugh that shook some dust on the floor his fancy dress shoes left footprints on.

“That’s right, another win for those of us with power and money. Your little local sheriff’s department that I paid off warned me. Which is why I had to bump up the plans to tonight and ruin your little daddy/daughter date.” He set the bloodied knife down on the top cinder block and gave me a petulant sigh. “Oh, and sorry about your family’s restaurant. But you know, I had to get you guys separated somehow. Plus, that was and still is my first cover story. It’s like the cherry on top of ruining you and your family.”

His eyes narrowed as he stood upright and brushed the concrete dust from his suit coat sleeve. “You’re awfully quiet for someone who is about to watch the woman he loves and his daughter get murdered.” O’Connor pursed his lips and in a baby voice said, “Too much for a big, bad, traumatized Navy SEAL to handle?”

A crackle in my ear sent a shiver down my spine.

And I grinned.

Fina-fucking-ly.

Chapter 35

FORD

O’Connor stiffened, and his brows pinched together. “Why…Why are you smiling like that?”

“You know, I always thought it was cliché when the bad guy in every fucking movie would give some long monologue about why they’re doing this. Do you guys get off on that shit or something?” I asked.

His eyes darted to the screen where Colette and Azelie remained kneeling and hunched over, then back to me. “I don’t get it. I just explained why you’re here and what’s going to happen. You’re about to watch me torture and kill Colette and Azelie, and you’re smiling. I—”

“It was such a cringey monologue, too,” I continued and subtly wrapped my hands around the chain. Not much, but the fucker had left just a smidge of slack if I sat up a little straighter. Enough slack that would do the trick. “Did you copy half your lines from some fucking movie or something? Is this your first time being the bad guy?”

“What the hell is going on?” O’Connor cried out.

The comm in my ear crackled. “We got everything,” Dom said. “You’re clear to engage, Tank.”

“What’s going on,” I began and jerked on the chain with every ounce of sheer strength and force I could muster. The muscles in my back and shoulders burned with the strain as the cold links bit into my wrists. The cinder blocks scraped against the floor with a gravelly groan. More. I needed more.

Sweat dripped from my brow as I locked sights with O’Connor. “Is I fucking knew this entire time,” I finished and jerked again with every ounce of my weight. With a little advantage from the angle of the chain and the traction from the gritty concrete floor below me, the cinder blocks hoisted further off the ground and swung.

Directly into O’Connor’s side.