Page 39 of Hunted Vengeance

“You don’t need bags where you’re going.”

His words come out smoothly, too smoothly. He chuckles, and it sends a chill down my spine. Closing my eyes, I pinch them tightly before I open them again, focusing on the man in front of me. His dark gaze is still focused on me, and his lips are still turned up into a smirk, a cocky smirk that is not sexy in the slightest.

In fact, it’s creepy as hell.

Instead of giving him the response that he’s looking for, I only lift my chin slightly higher in the air and look down my nose at him. I’m trying as hard as I can not to burst into tears again.

A few moments later, we are in a car. Me in the back seat, and he is in the front, driving back to the city. I feel as though there should be gloom and doom music playing, a warning for what’s about to come, but there is nothing.

Just silence.

Chapter Seventeen

MERRICK

“I’mready to get the fuck out of this city,” I mutter as I scan the church in front of me. “I’ve been here way too fucking long. I want to go home to my own bed with my own wife. In order to do that, I have to get through today.”

At least, that’s what I tell myself. Certainly, I don’t think about the aftermath of today and what kind of shitstorm it’s going to cause. I’m not sure anyone else is thinking about it, either.

“Have you decided what’s to be done with the Willow Club?” I ask Theron.

I’m too fucking antsy to just sit here in silence, and I don’t want to talk about Colette or what’s going to happen today anymore. I need something to distract me as we wait for vendors to arrive so we can slip in and out of the chaos of the gigantic event.

Theron doesn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he clears his throat and leans back in his seat. As I wait for him to answer, I glance over to the van that is backed up to the side door of the church. That is what I’ll be using to drive my wife out of here… my ex-wife.

“We’ve taken control of it,” he states. “I don’t want to run a nightclub, though. As much as I think it would be a good diversification, I’m thinking we could sell it, maybe to someone who wouldn’t be a fucking problem?”

“I like the sound of that,” I say. “I’m all about income, but what if we did a triple net lease?”

Theron arches a brow, turning his head to meet my eyes. “Are you saying we keep the land and lease out the building?”

“They’re responsible for everything. Repairs, taxes, the whole fucking thing.”

His lips curve up into a grin. We’re a group of men who have come from absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, really. We don’t even have any education, yet here we are, running a multimillion-dollar security firm.

But between the six of us, we can and will rise above all our circumstances. Environments that were beyond our control. But we are men now, and we are the ones in control—or taking control, in my case.

“I love that idea. Let’s do it. We have enough connections that we could make his happen,” Theron murmurs.

Thankfully, that conversation takes up a few minutes, but not long enough because my thoughts drift back to Colette. “Did we ever find out who the fuck she was marrying?” I ask.

Theron shakes his head. “I even asked Lucille to look, but she found nothing. Although I didn’t tell her much about the reason behind it.”

I don’t tell him that she probably knows more than he does about this situation. Instead, I just smile and stare at the cars that are beginning to pull into parking spots around us. I watch as people exit, grabbing bags and cases out of their trunks.

“I think these are vendors,” Theron mutters, saying out loud what I was already thinking.

I hum, unable to look anywhere but the parking lot as I anticipate her arrival. I need to know that she’s okay. I need to see her with my own eyes, touch her with my fingertips, kiss her with my lips.

I just need Colette.

Thoughts of the man who she is supposed to marry leave my mind the moment the blacked-out sedan pulls up beside us. A tall man exits the driver’s seat. I watch as he straightens and then glances around, surveying the area. He’s looking for something, maybe even someone.

He is not the man in charge, though.

He doesn’t carry himself like a man who has any real power. This is one of their men, either Colette’s fiancé or her father’s. He’s not in charge, even if he wishes he were. This is not a man who holds true authority.

“I think she’s here,” I whisper.

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