Page 78 of Westin

“He pulled a gun on me.”

The guy wasn’t impressed with that. He simply climbed back onto the ATV and started it again. The engine roared as he gave it a little gas, then they took off again, following the fence line until they came to a small break. It was the same area where Fang had gotten onto the property when he broke into her room. It was the same place Clint had brought her the day he told her that Will wasn’t to be trusted.

There was a narrow road on the other side of the fence that the driver eased the ATV onto, gunning the engine as he seemed to have found a space he was comfortable with navigating in the near pitch-darkness. A sinking feeling moved through Lee as it occurred to her that this road ran between the three hundred acres Asa Howard had won in that infamous card game and the still-existing sections of Rocking D.

She knew where he was taking her. She hated that she was right, hated what it might mean for Westin. What it meant for Miss Dulcie and everyone else on Golden Sphinx.

The road was rutted, causing her to bounce all over the wide seat. She slammed into the back of the driver several times, a part of her hoping she was hurting him. He finally reached back and grabbed her arm, pulling it around his waist so that she wouldn’t move so freely. She tried to pull away, but he had a strong grip on her wrist, too strong.

She had to be smart. Save her energy.

She also needed to remember that they had failed to search her. There was still a gun tucked into the back of her jeans, if the bouncing of the ATV didn’t shake it loose.

They cut to the left in a sudden, jolting turn that had them bouncing over uncut grass and drifts of snow. She held on, suddenly imagining herself falling off the machine and being dragged by her wrist where it was still handcuffed to the seat. She’d be dead quicker that way, but it wasn’t really the way she wanted to go out.

A hulking building stood off in the distance, clearly the destination of her driver. As they sped toward it, the tall doors were rolled backward, lights pouring out onto the ground in front of it, an almost welcoming sight. The driver pulled right into the building—which appeared to be an abandoned barn—and stopped just a few feet from a table that had been set in the middle of the dirt-packed floor. He climbed off the machine, walking over to one of the guys who’d closed the door behind them, slapping him on the back. They spoke in quiet tones, glancing over at her from time to time, but neither seemed to be in a hurry to move her from the ATV.

Lee pulled one leg over the seat, turning so that her back was away from their line of sight. She reached back, touching the satisfying hulk of the gun under her shirt. But almost the moment she did it, someone came over and yanked the gun free.

“You won’t be needing that,” a deep, masculine voice informed her.

Lee turned again, taking in the vision of the man standing before her. He wasn’t familiar to her, not someone she’d ever seen before. He looked to be about forty, sandy-blond hair and green eyes, a face marked by years of sun exposure. He had dimples when he smiled, something he did just then as though he were greeting her as a guest to his establishment rather than as a kidnapping victim.

“I apologize for the dramatics, but it was necessary for us to have a conversation.”

“I don’t know who you are.”

He tucked her gun into the back of his pants much like she’d worn it, before straightening the dark jacket he wore. There was a logo on his left shoulder, a red D lying on its rounded side, hash marks around it to indicate a rocking motion. Rocking D, she assumed. The logo Westin had mentioned.

“I’m Pete James. Everyone around here calls me Petey.”

She nodded. “Petey J.”

One eyebrow cocked as he looked her over. “You’re a smart one. Will said that you were.”

“He would know. He’s the one who trained me.”

“Did a good job, too.” He rolled his head a little as he looked at her, something almost like pity in his eyes. “He considered recruiting you to our side. Said he took your temperature a time or two, but he ultimately decided it wasn’t an option.” He sighed. “Too bad. You could have been a real asset.”

“An asset? To what? Destroying the youth of our country?”

“I like to think of it as weeding out the weak and allowing the strong to rise to the top. Kind of like the cream in real cow’s milk.”

“So, you’re helping society while making yourself rich?”

“It’s a happy side effect.”

She swung with her free hand, tried to connect with his jaw, but he easily stepped out of her reach.

“We’re going to have some real fun with you,” he said, that charming smile coming back before he turned and walked away.

Lee watched him join a group of about three men at the back of the old barn. She turned, trying to see who else was in there, what else was happening around her. There were four sets of doors: the massive doors they’d driven through, a person-sized door beside those, another in the far wall, and one at the back. There were windows, but they were up in the loft level and there didn’t appear to be a ladder or anything that she could use to get up there. Three more men were standing by the massive doors—the driver who brought her here, and two others.

The table set up in front of her was bare of any instruments or weapons. It was just a table, probably used for packaging product when it arrived. There were hooks on the beams above her in a square around the main part of the floor, probably to hold plastic that would keep the residue from the drugs from spreading throughout the building when they worked. Drug dealers had this stuff down to a science, and it looked like this operation wasn’t any better or worse than any other she’d busted in the past.

She tugged at the handcuffs again, but they weren’t budging. She slid her legs back over to the other side and slipped to the floor, testing her sore ankle. Pain shot through her with just a small amount of pressure, unbearable pain. She wasn’t going to be able to put weight on that ankle.

That wasn’t good.

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