Page 96 of Cisco

“I won’t,” Hilly’s voice, although weak, still held defiance.

“You will.” Another smack to flesh rang out.

Cisco couldn’t fathom what he was hearing. His blood boiled. What new damage had the asshole done to Hilly, and what was she supposed to touch? If Cottins so much as dared assault her in another way, he’d kill the prick, twice.

Cisco wrestled even harder with the ropes.

He was almost there.

Another minute…

“Cottins has a gas can, Cisco,” Hilly’s called out, her tone feeble yet determined. “He put my fingerprints on it. He’s going to set the shack on fire!”

“Shut up, bitch,” Cottins yelled, and Hilly grunted. Cisco could only imagine that the dead-man-walking had pummeled her again.

Cisco howled, smelling gasoline as he fought with the last of his wrist bindings. His feet remained tied, but that would only take him seconds…

A whoosh sounded from just outside, and a burst of fire immediately leapt high, visible though the open door.

Fuck. It was spreading, fast.

Cisco needed to get out. He needed to get to Hilly.

“Ciscooo!”

His woman’s voice echoed in the night, fading off into the distance as the last of his ropes fell away.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Hilly dragged her feet as much as possible. She knew the SWAT team was on its way, and they’d eventually find her. But would they make it to Cisco in time to get him out of the burning building? She glanced back, seeing the fire-brightened sky, clouded with plumes of smoke.

A painful sob escaped from between her lips as Cottins kept up a relentless pace.

Hilly was hurting all over because of the repeated times Cottins had slammed into her, but her greater agony was not knowing Cisco’s fate. Had she loosened his bonds enough for him to wiggle out of the rest on his own? Had he been able to get out of the shack before it was engulfed?

Not knowing Cisco’s fate, Hilly’s anger over Cottins’ cruelness had her fighting even harder in his grasp. She wasn’t going to make it easy for the other man. Even though he had a hundred pounds and seven inches on her, whatever he had planned, she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

She turned and bit his shoulder.

“Fucking bitch,” he snarled, and punched her again, this time in the ribcage with the flashlight he held. She doubled over and would have fallen, but the evil man maintained his bruising grip, intent on dragging her relentlessly to some unknown destination.

Hilly fought against the black dots that floated before her eyes, and won the battle to stay conscious. “You are a dead man, Cottins,” Hilly heaved, trying to catch her breath after the near-debilitating blow. Somehow, she also managed to keep her feet underneath her as they sped along an old, rough path Cottins had found. “Mason and his SWAT team are going to get you. You’re an idiot, and you’re done.”

Cottins shook her again as he continued to drag her bodily along. “Shut up, cunt. They’re not going to find me,” he snarled. “They’re going to find that asshole cop’s charred body, then they’ll find you, mangled at the bottom of a ravine. And when they do, I’ll be long gone.”

“Mangled… What are you talking about?” Hilly’s gut clenched.

He laughed, nastily. “You didn’t think we were just out for an evening stroll, did you?” he gloated. “I’m not letting you live after what you’ve seen and all the problems you’ve caused me. You’ve been the bane of my existence.”

“Me? Problems? What the fuck are you talking about?” Hilly snarled back, incredulous. Not only was the man off the rails, thinking he was going to kill her, he somehow imagined she was responsible for all his bad decisions?

“You heard me.” His mood turned combative again, and he shook her angrily, this time exerting agonizing pressure on her shoulder joint. “If it weren’t for you and your grandmother, I wouldn’t be in debt right now. A few years ago, I put up almost everything I owned as collateral to buy the acreage north of here that’s adjacent to yours, knowing that once I got my hands on the camp’s lakefront property, I’d own a developer’s goldmine. But your grandmother refused to sell. When she proved to be stubborn no matter what I offered, I had your father put pressure on her in various ways…”

Hilly growled, recalling a number of vandalism issues her Gran had faced in the final two seasons she’d been alive. Now she knew why. She couldn’t believe it. Gran’s own son—Hilly’s trash of a father—had been responsible for those defacements.

The realization was abhorrent to Hilly, but not entirely unexpected. For her sperm donor, it was always about him.

Cottins continued. “Then the bitch died and she left the camp to you; her granddaughter. What kind of whore does that? Disinherits her only son?”

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