Page 49 of The Amendment

“I don’t seem to recall things working out too well for the women in our old days.”

“Nah, now, this wouldn’t be that. I’d bring her back to you alive and well… If not a little sore.”

“Fuck you—”

He laughed, cutting me off. “Suit yourself, but take some time to think about it, okay? You have twenty-four hours to decide. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll have another shipment being delivered next weekend. I’ll be around,unloading and loading stuff when I need to. Might have to send a few of my guys in when I get a bigger shipment. This one was a bitch to do myself. You can leave the door open if you want, but…well, you know, we can find our way in if we need to. Perks of building the room, I guess.”

“You’re crazy if you think—”

“Twenty-four hours.”

The call ended, and my chest swelled with outright horror.

Now what was I supposed to do? There was no way I was going to let him have any amount of time with Ainsley, not that she’d agree to it anyway. And I couldn’t have him and hisguys—whatever the hell that meant—showing up to my house whenever they wanted to when my kids were home.

I already had one murder to plan; I desperately didn’t need another.

But here I was, with my hands tied.

There was no choice, really.

And now, I had a ticking clock on top of it all.

Twenty-four hours.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

AINSLEY

One problem at a time.

We could only solve one problem at a time.

Peter had taken Dylan to meet Julie, Riley was out for the day with a few of his friends, and Jennessa and her mother had come to pick up Maisy first thing that morning.

I tried not to take it personally that we’d only been home from our family bonding trip for twelve hours—most of those sleeping hours—when each of my children chose to bolt.

I needed to talk to Maisy further. I felt awful letting her leave, but in truth, I was grateful for the quiet to let myself process and decide how we were going to move forward.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew how we were going to proceed.

Peter and I were going to kill him.

Period.

The sooner he took his last breath, the better.

But would we make him confess first? Would we ask for the names of all of his victims? Would it be random? Would he know why he was going to die?

Most importantly, how were we going to do it without getting caught?

I was having flashbacks of the experience with Stefan—blood and evidence, panic and fear, cops and knocks on doors, long, sleepless nights…

I didn’t want to relive that, but this time would be different.

Then, I’d needed to keep Peter in the dark about why Stefan had to die. I needed him to see that we could rely on each other. I wanted him to finally come clean to me about everything—all his secrets—in order to save us.

When he hadn’t, I’d finally had to confront him.

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