Page 118 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“I didn’t come here by choice,” Cole choked out.

Jeron merely shrugged. “Then you were unlucky.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s nothing personal. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Walk.”

“What are you doing in this place that’s worth killing for?”

Another shrug, and they stopped in front of the second-to-last cell in the row. “This one is yours.”

When Cole hesitated, Jeron pushed him toward the open door. “Get in, or I’ll shoot you right here.”

Would that really be worse than dying huddled on the bed the way some other poor soul had done? No. But if Frankie raised the alarm, if someone came looking for him… Perhaps they’d die too. And what about Bella? There was a chance she’d survived. She might have run deep into the jungle, and a team could search in there for days and never find a person. What would happen then? Would these psychos give up and go home? Or would they stay and hunt?

“Do you really want to add to the stench?” Cole asked Jeron. “Wouldn’t it be easier to toss me into the ocean?”

Outside, there might be a chance to run, to dart into the trees and hide. The chances of survival were slim, but anything was better than dying in this hellhole surrounded by the remains of other souls who’d made the ultimatemistake. Cole should have tried fleeing before, he knew that now, but hindsight was a wonderful thing.

“No fun in that, boy. We keep you like a pet, see how long it takes you to die. Ain’t got much of a sense of smell anyway.”

Again, Jeron jabbed Cole with the gun barrel, and with little choice but to obey, he walked into the cell. The door clanged shut behind him.

“Maybe I give you a choice.” Jeron aimed the gun at Cole and laughed. “Maybe before I leave, I ask you again. Do you want to die quick, or do you want to die slow?”

How could Cole answer that? He didn’t want to die at all. Well, he wanted to die quickly, but sixty years from now, having lived a long, happy life. With Bella. Fuck, where was she?

When Cole didn’t answer, Jeron just chuckled, and no doubt about it, the man was nuts.

“Me, I want to die quick,” he said. “No rotting away in a prison cell, no?—”

The shots were deafening. Jeron’s gun flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor, but Cole barely noticed that as the man’s head disintegrated in front of him. Adrenaline exploded into his veins as he unfroze and dove to the floor, not that there was anywhere to hide. The desk was bolted to the wall. He couldn’t even use it as a shield. If whoever just killed Jeron wanted Cole dead as well, this would be over in a few seconds.

Cole strained to listen for footsteps, his ears ringing, but the only sound came from his thumping heart.

“Well, this is awkward.”

His head snapped up at the sound of Bella’s voice. She skirted the pool of blood, an evil-looking rifle at her side, the cast gone, a Bond girl come to life. Fuck, she was bleeding.

“You…you killed him?”

The question sounded preposterous, but she was the one holding the gun.

“Yes, but he said he wanted to die quick. Think of me as his fairy godmother. Or is it the genie? Which one grants the wishes?”

“The genie.”

“Right, then I’m the genie.”

It was Bella, but it wasn’t. Gone was the sweetness that had begun to show over the past few weeks; this was the woman who’d walked up to him in the Black Diamond and bet him a blow job they could sneak into a party. But much, much darker.

“You just shot a man.”

She held up her fingers in a V. “Two men, actually. Are you injured?”

Who is this woman?

“I’m not hurt. You’re covered in blood.”

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