Page 235 of Things We Hide from the Light

Dilton gleefully chomped on his gum. “Looks like I can do anything I want with you and your bitch mouth.”

“Charming. Why am I here? Is this what you do to every woman who tells you to grow up and be a man? I mean, it would explain why you need such a large facility.”

“You’re here because you and your fucking friends are done pissing me off.”

Judging from Nikos’s eye roll, that was not exactly why I was here.

“Hold on. You hadmekidnapped becauseyougot fired for being a racist misogynist? Are you one of those perpetual victims who blames everyone else for what a shitty human being you turned out to be?”

“Told you a rock through her window wasn’t gonna cut it,” Nikos muttered.

“You’re fuckin’ here because you ran your bitch mouth in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Dilton snarled. “Plan was to take the other two bitches first. Tina’s kid and her tight-assed twin. But you just had to go and make yourself a shinier target, shopping by yourself and figuring things out.”

I glanced at Nikos. He’d seen Waylay with me. He could have easily taken us both. Well, not easily. I still had another stiletto and he still had another leg. But he’d decided against kidnapping a child. Maybe he wasn’t the worst bad guy in the room.

Nikos avoided my gaze and I decided it was probably best for both of us if I didn’t mention it.

“So we’ll start with you and then take care of the other three problems,” Dilton continued. He pointed at me like his finger was a gun and mimed pulling the trigger.

“We don’t need to discuss the plan with her.”

Dilton scoffed. “Why not? Not like she’s gettin’ out of here alive.” He looked at me with a sick kind of excitement in his eyes.

“Hey, asshole, how are you gonna motivate her to lure her cop boyfriend here since you just told her you were gonna kill her no matter what?” Nikos demanded. “Jesus, do you even know how motivation works?”

“You actually work for him?” I asked Nikos, jerking my head toward Dilton. “I would have stuck with real estate.”

“I don’t work for him,” Nikos snapped.

Dilton sneered. “We’ll see about that.” He turned his attention back to me. “As for you, I’m not a man to be truffled with. Your boyfriend should have known that.”

“Trifled,” Nikos corrected. “Truffle is a goddamn mushroom, you fucking idiot.”

“Fuck you, dick.”

Dilton took his boots off the desk and made a show of wandering around to the front. He leaned casually against it, his legs stretching out toward me.

“So what now? What are you going to do with me?”

He leaned forward menacingly until I could smell the stale beer on his breath. A fat finger hooked in the neckline of my shirt and tugged. “Anything I fuckin’ want.”

Rage licked its way up my spine, making me shake.

Headbutt, knee to the balls, break the zip tie, run.

“Well, well, well…”

We all turned as a freshly showered Duncan Hugo entered the room. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans with a handgun tucked into the waistband. His hair, originally a fiery red, was now dyed a dark brown. But the freckles, the tattoos, everything else I’d memorized from photos was exactly the same.

“Your boy here already used that bad guy line,” I informed him.

I didn’t miss the way Hugo’s eyes narrowed at the dirty cop’s ass planted on the desk, the dried mud sprinkled across the surface. He prowled into the room and caught the bag of candy Nikos tossed at him.

“Ass off the desk, Dilton.”

Dilton took his sweet time complying.

“You’ve caused me a few headaches recently,” Hugo said to me as he took a seat behind the desk.