Page 262 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
He suddenly stood and whipped the back of his hand across the side of my face.
An agonized cry squeezed up my throat and my entire body rocked in that direction. Two legs of the chair lifted from the floor and nearly toppled to the side with the force. It thuddedas it righted itself, the chair settling, though there was nothing inside me that was settled.
It was mayhem.
Chaos.
My worst fear catching up to me when I thought I’d finally reached that beautiful horizon.
On top of it, Justin was spewing questions that I didn’t understand.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Piper. You’re here in Moonlit Ridge with that pompous fucker who thought he could put an end to me. Know you hooked up with him. It was a whole ploy, wasn’t it? You playin’ innocent, and you were fucking him the whole time, weren’t you? Just like that little bitch, Scarlett.”
Confusion wound through my brain.
Zaps of uncertainty flickering and snapping as I tried to maintain coherency.
Consciousness fading with each brutal blow Justin delivered.
My head sagged between my shoulders, and a stream of blood rushed down my cheek to my chin before it dripped to the floor.
“Please, Justin. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I didn’t know why I was begging. Why I would ask for his mercy.
Not when I knew firsthand that he was the manifestation of evil.
His voice was hollow and cruel. “Theo. Couldn’t believe it when I tracked you here and found you with that bastard, but I shouldn’t have been surprised, should I? Know he planned the whole thing. Know he took my money and the jewelry. Did he sell it? I’m not leaving here until I take back what’s owed to me. Going to end his whole crew, then the Owls and I will reign again.”
He returned the knife to my neck, and he pressed his mouth to my ear.
Wickedness flooded out as he started to speak, “Then I’m going to gut you all. First that little boy and your grandmother. Gonna do it right in front of you for making me chase you for all these years. Then I’ll take care of you. Might make it fast if you tell me where the fuck my money is.”
“The Owls?” I blinked through the disorder. Through the haze that blurred my sight and the daze that fogged my mind.
Trying to catch the thread of awareness that dangled in my periphery.
Justin’s chuckle was full of disbelief. “Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. The old MC. Your fuckboy and I were supposed to be brothers, and he betrayed me. Betrayed the whole club. All of them deserve to die just for that, which I’m going to see to it that they do. But Theo? He has a special punishment coming.”
“Used to be a part of a brutal MC. We were bad, Piper. In the worst way.”
But Justin—I’d never seen him on a motorcycle. Except…that first day when I tried to go to the police. When I’d known he was following me.
Oh, God. He knew Theo. And he thought…
“Theo doesn’t have anything to do with this. I took the money. I have it. And you’re never going to find it if anything happens to any of them.”
Rage blistered through Justin’s being. I could taste it. Thick and cloying on my tongue.
Sickness boiled in my stomach, and my skin was coated in a sheen of terror.
I struggled to keep it together. To figure out a way to lure Justin away from this town so my family would be safe. So the ones I loved would be safe.
It was the only thing that had ever mattered.
Finn and Nelly’s safety. Their chance at a better life.
A real life.
