Page 162 of Unwrapping Deviance

She stops with her hand on the knob. “Of course.”

“About what?”

She shrugs. “You’ll never know. Oh, don’t run. They’ve rigged every inch of this property with traps. They won’t patch up your wounds and don’t fight. They like it when the girls fight. It’s like a game to them.”

With no further attempt at conversation, she leaves, and the two hulking assholes replace her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

DANIEL

––––––––

What the fuck?

This can’t be happening. I couldn’t have lost Mira so easily. Right out from under my nose. I was right there. Just outside the house. How the fuck did they get her?

My fingers tighten around the wheel, my nerves lit on fire yet oddly numb. The highway zips past in a blur of other cars and trees, but I notice nothing but the hammering between my ears. The knot in my belly.

They had my baby. They took her.

They had this planned. It was too neat, too quick. They knew exactly what we would do, and we did it. We fell right into their trap.

Christian sits in the seat next to me. Mira’s seat. His face is a blank mask glaring out into the dwindling afternoon.

He blames himself.

Even if he hasn’t said a word, hasn’t already stamped the full weight of the blame on himself, I feel it to my core. To him, it doesn’t matter that we were both there, or that I am equally to blame. He and only he can shoulder this burden, and my only focus is getting Mira back.

I didn’t see anyone. I heard nothing, but I will give my last dollar that this is all Lucy. Maybe not her personally, but her brothers for sure. They took Mira. They took her to make up for what happened with Wyatt.

There’s a good chance I’m wrong, but I doubt it; there isn’t another person in Jefferson who would have a grudge. Walton,maybe, but he’s too much of a little bitch to pull this off. The Carr brothers are a different matter.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and toss it into Christian’s lap.

“Call Brewer. Tell him we’re headed for the Carr’s house and if he wants to avoid bloodshed, he better get his ass there now.”

Christian doesn’t argue. He says nothing as he does as he’s told.

I park outside the single-story ranch with the neat flower bed out front and the silver pathway leading to a freshly painted door in startling white. The shutters match. The windows gleam. The grass is trimmed exactly two inches. Not a thing has changed in seventeen years, not even the cheery, canary yellow mailbox at the end of the driveway.

I don’t dwell as I march up the path to the door. I lift a fist and bang twice.

A dog barks somewhere down the street. A group of children scream several yards down as they chase each other through a sprinkler. It’s all so normal yet nothing about how I’m feeling feels normal.

Jameson opens the door.

His massive bulk dominates the entire doorway. His hard eyes bore into mine first with surprise, then rage.

“What are you doing here, MacAllister?”

“Where’s Mira?” I retort with equal malice. “Where did you take her?”

Jameson stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Why would I—?”

“Because you or your brothers broke in and took her. This matter is between you and me. She’s innocent. I don’t care what you do to me but let her go.”

“She’s not here,” he says.

---