Page 125 of Pretty Vengeance

“Get in, or I’ll stick you in back.”

My brows shoot up. “What the hell are you talking about? Are we actually meeting Jamie?”

“No, I’m fucking kidnapping you while I run errands.” War rolls his eyes as he grabs my arm and drags me toward the back of the vehicle.

“What the fuck? Stop.” Trying to pull away, I glare at him.

He drops my purse on the ground at his feet while he opens the back hatch with his left hand. After he pushes the waterslide box to the side, War sweeps me up and sets me inside.

I scream as he slams the back down and clicks the lock.

As I’m trying to open the back, he closes the passenger door and stalks around to the truck’s driver’s side. While he’s getting in, I climb over the barrier and land on the back seats.

My heart feels like it’ll pound out of my chest as I try to open a side door. Child locks must be enabled, because the door won’t budge.

For fuck’s sake. What is happening?

Unperturbed, War opens my purse, extracts my phone, and presses the side button to power it down. When he jerks his own phone out and turns it off too before tossing both devices onto the passenger seat with my purse, I go still.

“What are you doing?”

“Making it so we can’t be tracked.”

“The truck has GPS.” I regret the words as soon as they’re out of my mouth. I want him to see the futility of what he’s doing, but I’m not trying to assist in my own abduction.

He starts the truck and swings it in a wide arc to exit the parking lot.

“Look, it doesn’t cost you anything to explain yourself,” I say.

“Situation is fluid. He’ll tell you what he wants you to know. Unless he can’t, and then I will.”

Falling back against the seat, I feel as though all the air deflates from my lungs.Unless he can’t.Does that mean someone will order Jamie not to share details? Or that he’ll be too injured to speak?

Crossing my arms over my chest, I grow increasingly surly. “Jamie went to talk to one of your bosses, didn’t he? If they sent him to do something dangerous, why the hell aren’t you with him?”

War ignores me. I swallow the lump in my throat with a racing heart. What possible reason could War have for pulling me out of Scott’s home? Where Jamie left me to drink Guinness and play with his little cousins?

I stare suspiciously at the back of War’s head. Maybe he took me as leverage. If so, he’s working against Jamie, not with him. And I need to try to get away.

When we’re about thirty minutes outside Coynston, he pulls off the expressway and into the parking lot of a weathered motel that needs a coat of paint. And about a thousand other things.

War turns in the seat to look at me with his signature scowl. “This is a precaution.” He gestures at the motel office. “I’m getting you a room. We can’t use our cell phones here. But in a while, I’ll go offsite so I can contact him.”

With my arms still crossed over my chest, I glare at him.

He’s unmoved by my discontent. “Get down so no one sees you when the interior lights come on.” War grabs the phones and shoves them in his pockets. When I make no move to lie down, he shakes his head. “Your fucking funeral.”

I stare after him as he exits the truck and locks the doors again with the fob, trapping me inside, before he stalks away.

There are a few cars in the dark lot, but no one’s around. The only movement comes from passing headlights on the highway.

A few minutes later, War returns and opens one of the side doors.

I don’t move toward him. “The truck has GPS, and there will be surveillance footage of us walking around the toy store. There’s no way you’ll be able to?—”

“GPS is disabled on all Crue trucks. It’s the first thing that’s done.” He glances around the parking lot, then opens the front passenger door to grab my purse, which he holds out to me. “Come on.”

I’m torn. I want out of the truck with its creepy kidnapping-enabled locks. But I have no idea what awaits me in the motel room.