Page 64 of Psycho

“They found her!” Peyton screamed, reaching for my hand and pushing it off her leg while I tried to pry the steering wheel out of where it was wedged into her thigh. “They hit us!”

“Get out of there!” Dane roared.

“P’s trapped!” I cried, pulling at the wheel, trying desperately to get her leg free, but it wouldn’t move. “She’s bleeding!”

“Liv, leave me, go!” She shoved me again and then reached for her bracelet that she wore every single day and ripped it off before shoving it at my chest. “Take this, it’s your only chance. They’ll find you from it.” I couldn’t process what she was saying, or what her golden skull bracelet was going to do for me as I kept fighting with the mangled metal impaling her. Peyton shoved it down the front of my shirt as a hand wrapped around my ankle, where it hung out of my broken window and yanked. “No! Liv!” Her blood-curdling scream matched mine as I was forcefully dragged across the glass out onto the pavement next to the car. “Let her go! No! They have her, Dane!” Free from the wreckage, I rolled onto my back, the cold ground seeping into my clothes as I stared up into the eyes of the devil himself; his glare burned into mine like a familiar threat.

“Well, well, well,” Damon stared down at me as I cowered beneath him. “Why didn’t you tell me I was going to be a daddy?”

Chapter 27 – Maddox

My blood was cold, moving through my veins in slow motion as my brain locked out everything else but lethal focus.

Damon had Liv.

Dane had been at the loft working on some things while the girls were out for the afternoon together when he got an alert on his phone.

Crash Detected.

As soon as the chime from the alarm ended, the audio connected with the interior of Peyton’s car through his system. We were out the door before Peyton’s manic words registered through the speaker.

“Olivia, they’re coming. Run!”

But it was too late. All we could do was listen while I drove us across the city at breakneck speed as Damon Kirst kidnappedLiv right from Peyton’s crashed car. The way my body processed the news, in real time, and even now that she had officially been missing for eight hours, was familiar, yet new all in one.

I was used to having a lethal edge when it came to work, the ability to separate feelings and emotions from my job, it was a skill that made me the most desirable mercenary on the East Coast. But having Liv be the subject of this job ramped those skills up another ten levels.

I was going to find her.

And when I did, the earth would quake with my wrath.

Chapter 28 – Olivia

God, it was fucking cold. My teeth chattered; the jarring noise echoing off the brick walls around me. I didn’t have many details about where I was, or even what type of room I was in, thanks to the pitch blackness surrounding me. But I knew it was fucking cold.

I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall that I thought was farthest from the door I had been thrown through, but the same familiar cold seeped through my clothes and into my bones. Flashbacks of the last time Damon Kirst had me in captivity assaulted me nonstop since he threw me in the room and locked the door behind him.

When Damon had picked me up off the ground and dragged me to a waiting van, I fought him with everything I had. One arm was useless, the sickening grind of my dislocated shoulder echoing in my ears every time I moved it, along with the sting of other, hopefully minor injuries. He easily overpowered me, and the screech of tires was the last thing I heard as he sped away.The only slight relief I had from the mental and physical torment of pain rushing through my mind and body was when my baby would move or kick like normal, reassuring me that it was still with me.

The crash had been so violent that when I felt the baby move for the first time after, I silently cried in relief.

I screamed for Peyton so loud as they dragged me away, my vocal cords ached and burned with each breath, and the only noise that would still come out sounded like a dying cat.

I had no idea if my sister was alive. All I knew was she had been covered with blood, pinned and trapped in the car when I was dragged away from her as we both screamed each other’s names.

The longer that time passed in the blinding darkness, the more I worried I’d never see her again. I would accept any punishment Damon, or his rich associates planned for me if her death was my fault. I’d deserve it.

She didn’t deserve to get wrapped up in my shit like that. I should have just stayed home like a good girl; like Maddox had wanted me to.

Maddox.

God, even thinking about him made my chest ache and eyes burn with tears I couldn’t hold back.

If Damon won this whole thing, Maddox’s soul wouldn’t survive the fallout. In his revenge, he would shatter Hell’s crust and be lost forever.

A loud, jarring noise from somewhere else in the building made every nerve in my body convulse like I was being electrocuted by fear alone. Minutes later, the door opposite of me opened and a blinding light mixed with the blinding darkness, burning my eyes as shadows crossed through the opening.

I cowered away. Again. I didn’t care; I was woman enough to admit that I feared what was to come. Damon’s cruel voice echoed from behind my scrunched eyelids across the room. “I know she ain’t much to look at, but she’s smart as fuck.”

---