Page 13 of Pay the Price

Jace cursed. “Her dad fuckingkidnappedher. Held her prisoner.” I’d managed to tell them that much — that my dad had sent Calvin to grab me at the end of the driveway. “We’re going to let her waltz out of here unprotected?”

“What do you care?” I threw the words at him, the only ones I knew would land since he’d made it clear he hated me. The nerve near his eye twitched, but he didn’t say anything. “Exactly.”

“At least let us drive you,” Wolf said. “Please.”

I didn’t want to give in to the desperation in his voice, but the thought of driving into town alone, knowing Calvin might already know I’d been rescued from the dam, wasn’t appealing.

“I need my car.”

“One of us will follow you in the Mustang,” Wolf said. “We’ll leave it at Cassie’s.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. Otis can drive me.”

I saw the hurt flash in Wolf’s blue eyes before he tucked it away with a nod.

Otis stood and reached for his keys.

Chapter 9

Otis

We couldn’t keep Daisy safe at Cassie’s.

The thought had beat like a drum all the way into town and all the way back to the house. I’d watched Daisy get out of the car, walk up to the unmarked door next to the entrance to Cassie’s Cuppa, and disappear inside.

I’d never been to Cassie’s apartment, but I knew she lived above the coffee shop in the building Bram had bought for her after their parents died.

I didn’t like that I couldn’t picture it in my mind, that I couldn’t assess the danger Daisy might be in there. How many exits were there? Did the coffee shop’s employees have access to the second floor? Was there a fire escape in the back, someplace an intruder could enter the building unseen? What about security cameras?

The questions unrolled in my mind. I would find the answers, do whatever I had to in order to make sure Daisy stayed safe this time.

Wolf had left the Mustang parked at the curb and we’d driven home in the Corvette, both of us silent. What could we say? Daisy was gone and neither of us was surprised.

It had always been a matter of time before she confirmed that we’d killed Blake.

Now we were sitting in the kitchen with Jace, a pall even I could feel hanging over the room.

“We can’t keep her safe at Cassie’s,” I finally said.

“No shit,” Jace said. “We shouldn’t have let her leave.”

“We can’t keep her prisoner here,” Wolf said.

“The fuck we can’t.” Jace’s face looked funny but I couldn’t tell if he was upset or mad or scared.

Could someone be all three?

“We should just tell her everything,” I said, because that seemed like the easiest way to move past the fact that we’d killed Blake.

Jace glared at me. “You want to tell Daisy that her brother was threatening to sell her — to sell his virgin little sister — to the highest bidder?”

“She has to know eventually, right?” I asked. “Especially if her dad was in on it.”

We’d suspected that part years before the Aventine alumni were caught trafficking girls: that Blake was working with his dad, that the two of them were involved in something dark and deadly for the girls of Blackwell Falls.

We’d just assumed Blake’s dad would stop after we killed him.

“It will kill her.” Wolf said it softly, like he didn’t want anyone else to hear even though there was no one in the kitchen except us. I already missed Daisy. Missed the way she laughed and the way she saw me, like I was an actual person and not a fucking freak.

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