Page 220 of Hold Me Until Morning

Nausea crawled over me like a physical sickness, my flesh going clammy and my mind getting warped.

“What do you want from me?” It would have been a whimper if there wasn’t so much spite behind it.

Pruitt leaned in and ran his nose down the side of my cheek. Vomit pooled in my mouth.

“Do you not understand it yet, Hailey? You’ve always been my prize. My gift for bringing my father’s world into your father’s. You are the key to this merger. I told you that you were mine. I take over once your father is gone. And without you? This whole deal falls apart. You wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would you?”

He dragged the barrel of the gun up the top of my leg.

Shivers crawled like a thousand spiders skittering across my skin.

Poisonous.

Toxic.

“I won’t go anywhere with you.” I spat the words, though they were soggy with horror.

Pruitt slung an arm around my shoulders, and he crushed me against him, his mouth at my cheek.

“See, now that’s where you’re wrong. I’m taking you home. Where you belong. Don’t worry, I already had one of my guys swing by that hovel where you were staying to pick up our daughter. He took care of that hick who thought he could have what is mine at the same time. Two birds and all of that.”

Cody.

Agony tore and ripped.

I thrashed against Pruitt. “No.”

No.

God, no.

Please.

Pruitt tsked, taunting, “You know, your dear daddy here has been trying to get rid of Cody Cooper for years.”

My father’s jaw clenched, and his hands flexed against the wheel.

“Ever since Cody discovered the ring in Eddings. Of course, he had to call that execution off when your friend happened to overhear the plans and it became far more important to silence her than it was to go after Cody. He couldn’t have two accidental deaths so close together, now, could he? Especially since each of them could be tied to the ranch?”

Another shot of grief rang out.

Bullet after bullet piercing my soul.

Brooke?

Oh God.

What was he saying? My father…he…

I spluttered over the gutting disbelief. The shattering sorrow that surged and swept and overcame.

Pruitt grinned and his dark eyes gleamed. He knew exactly what Brooke had meant to me. He was the one who’d comforted me after her death. Wrapped me up and promised to make me better. And now he was taunting me with the truth of what had really happened.

A sob ripped from my lungs.

Unstoppable.

The pain unbearable.

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