Page 26 of Tangled Lies

R.

K.

T.

Jett, Ronan, Knox, and Talon. That was what each had to be.

I hated the way my fingers shook as I tried to open the text message icon. Which one would be able to do anything? Would they do anything? Jett seemed like he would be willing to play a game and this might be the best one of them all. One where I had to read the cards to understand what hand I had.

My thumb hovered over the screen. Finally, I tapped to add one of the contacts, then the second, and third, and fourth. Now it was a group text and I had a one in four chance someone would help me.

Me: Anyone willing to come kidnap me again?

I hit send and waited a few breaths that felt like I was sucking in liquid rather than breathing.

Me: Please. I can’t go with Carrow. They said I had to move in tomorrow.

Still nothing. I put the phones away with shaking hands and swallowed past the panic winding around my neck like a snake. This couldn’t be the way my story would end. I would figure something out. I always did. I would avenge my parents. I hoped.

My family wouldn’t die like this. My uncle wouldn’t wipe them from existence and me with them. At least not before I took him with me.

The questions for me were how did I make them pay and could I do it if those four assholes didn’t show.

CHAPTER 7

JETT

Ilooked over at my boys as I leaned against the wall. I took my knife and a rag to clean away the blood that had dried there.

“How many times have we warned you? Don’t.” Talon paused as his fist landed a hit to the guy’s cheek. “Touch.” Another punch. “The” Another hit to the guy’s gut this time. “Girls.”

The one-way glass let us see into the club without anyone knowing exactly what we were doing in here. It was our office I supposed, although more often than not, there was more blood than paperwork in here.

The strip club was the one place we had purchased with our own money. Daddy Barone knew about it and looked at it as an extension of himself. He couldn’t touch shit here though. We sometimes used it to move some of the shadier sides of the Barone family businesses, but mostly? It was just a strip club that made us less dependent on the family.

“Knox, why are we wasting our time on this ex-customer?” I asked. The guy would be lucky if he made it out alive, which I guess I didn’t see happening.

To be honest though, tonight just felt off.

“Fuck if I know. But Ronan and Talon have been ready to fight since we dropped off the Harrington girl, so I’m just helping,” Knox said.

I smiled.

“I kind of miss our pretty girl too, but this? It’s not very satisfying, is it?”

He started crying after the first hit. “Sucks to think only be when you beat on women,” I said, but I didn't finish my thought.

All our phones beeped with a notification at once, and that’s when my boys stopped beating the pile on the floor.

I pulled out my phone first and smiled when I saw who it was from. We all had her number, it was our fucking phone, so she came up as pretty girl for me. I wasn’t dumb enough to use her real name.

No one needed to know about our new little toy.

Christmas was ruined when I opened the notification to reveal the text.

“Fuck.”

Pretty Girl: Anyone willing to come kidnap me again?