Page 80 of Wrecked for Love
I climbed back into my truck, keeping it all to myself. Thoughts started pounding in my head, one after another, like hail beating down on the earth. Fritzy. That saddle issue last week—it hadn’t felt like an accident. And Diesel’s gate…was that him too? He hadn’t even worked for me then. I’d turned him down the first time. Could he have been holding a grudge?
“Fuck!” I yelled, slamming my hand against the steering wheel.
This was the price I paid for letting my guard down. He’d come to me like a man in need—kind and with good intentions, or so I thought. I couldn’t forgive myself now. I should’ve chosen mistrust over mercy!
I drove back to The Lazy Moose like a man possessed, barely keeping the truck on the road as I headed straight for Hank.
“Hank…where’s Fritzy?” I demanded as I stormed up to him.
Hank scratched his head, frowning. “He was…shit, I can’t remember the last time I saw him. He was around this afternoon, though.”
“I saw him driving away at about three,” one of my ranch hands chimed in, looking uneasy.
And I was far from being uneasy. I was unsettled to my core. Fritzy might’ve been a disgruntled employee, but it didn’t quite add up. He’d been earning good money here for weeks. Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. There was only one explanation. Fritzy was working for Voss. He was Voss’s man!
Without a second thought, I slammed my truck into gear and shot down the drive toward the mailbox. A current of nerves passed through me as I skidded to a stop, threw the door open, and rushed to the box.
There it was—another note.
Just between you and me.And your precious little bird.
The Cove. 11 p.m. tonight.
One second late—you already know what happens next.
One call to the cops, and she’ll suffer the same fate.
The Cove?Where the hell was that? Buffaloberry Hill was inland. There wasn’t a cove in sight.
No, wait.
It was the name of a place. Tessa used to meet Armand at a riverside restaurant called The Cove. I’d even been there once for a fancy family dinner. It shut down years ago, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still being used as a meeting spot. If they were dragging me back there, there was no telling what I’d be walking into.
33
CLAIRE
How did I miss it? Fritzy, of all people. His shiftiness should’ve set off alarm bells, but I didn’t bat an eye. That damn ranch hand turned out to be working for the Vosses all along.
Now, here I was, trapped in a house that looked completely ordinary, as if a family lived here. It could’ve been anyone’s home. The only thing different about the room I was locked in was the window—it had been boarded up. But the rest of the space looked normal enough: a bed, a desk, a chair. It could’ve passed for a guest room in any suburban home.
I’d been unconscious for most of the journey, but judging by the time and the faint hints I’d managed to piece together, I knew we couldn’t be far from Buffaloberry Hill. Maybe just on the outskirts.
The door was locked, but they’d given me enough freedom to roam the room. Not that it mattered much. My mind was trying to figure out a way out of this mess. But before I could make sense of anything, the door creaked open.
Two men came in and grabbed me by the arms, holding me in place as more figures filled the room. And then, in front of me, stood a man I knew by reputation alone—Lucien Voss, the eldestsibling and now, the family’s patriarch, with their father gone. He had the same sharp features as his younger brother, Armand.
But it wasn’t just him. Lurking in the background was a figure I hadn’t expected to see. Armand himself, though his face was half-hidden behind bandages, sitting slumped in a wheelchair. Seeing him alive brought back the memory of The Willow—his assault, my retaliation. But I couldn’t recall exactly what I’d done to him, except for the hammer in my hand. It was all a haze of frantic moments where survival was my only goal.
Around them, half a dozen other men stood, including Fritzy, who couldn’t even look me in the eye.
Lucien spoke first, his voice cordial, as if this were nothing more than a family gathering.
“Good to finally meet you, Claire,” Lucien said with a smirk. “Sorry to interrupt your evening. I’m sure you had something special planned tonight.”
Whatever game the Voss brothers were playing now, I was the piece they intended to move.
He chuckled as if he was dealing with a teenager. “New couples—they always think every night is like the first date, right? Until the novelty wears off, and then it’s fighting over whether the steak was too rare or too done.”
