Page 115 of Cruel Love

“You check him.” I beeline toward the van, stepping over the lifeless body to peek inside the open door. “Lucy!” I shout, hoping to hear her voice again.

Say something, Luce. Anything.

The door on the other side flies open and one of the men limps out and runs off into the woods as fast as he can. Fox takes aim and fires a killing blow before he can disappear.

“Driver looks unconscious,” he says, easing in to take a closer look.

I see her lying on the floor against the back doors, her head obscured by that black hood they put on her. Cold, unmoving...

“Lucy!”

I climb inside, driven by one solitary need.

“Lucy...”

I lift her head and slowly loosen the hood to pull it off, revealing a head of short, blonde hair...

It’s not Lucy.

It’s her clothes. Her boots. Her body type, but...

My chest aches. No, no, no...

A crumpled piece of paper is pinned to her dress. I unfold it, finding a crude, handwritten message in blood-red ink.

She’s my dancer now.

“It’s not her,” I say aloud.

They played us.

“What?” Fox asks in the doorway.

I press two fingers along her neck to feel for a pulse. She’s dead. Whoever this poor girl is, they killed her to make sure they got away with Lucy Vaughn.

Why?

A man groans in the front seat. I softly release the girl down to the floor and back out of the van, marching directly for the driver’s open window.

He reaches into his jacket and palms a small pistol, but he doesn’t bother pointing it at me.

He aims at his own head.

“No—” I grab it, jerking it away as he pulls the trigger. It fires through the roof, missing his target. “I don’t think so.”

I yank him out of the van, dropping him down to the concrete and kicking the gun from his hand. Another swift punch to the head knocks him cold and he goes limp on the ground.

I need him alive.

“Dante.”

I turn to Fox. He’s knelt on the ground outside of the van with the dead man’s shirt raised to show his abdomen.

A cobra tattoo dances from his pecs to his navel.

I check the driver. He’s got the same tattoo.

Snake Eyes.

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