Page 44 of Gilded Locks
“A flight attendant. Someone who works for the Langfords, I suppose. She recognized my desperation and took pity on me. She told me where the boat was docked and where to find the hidden supplies.”
“You risked your life.”
“Maybe. But I’m alive. I don’t think they know where I am. Unless you plan to report me.”
Hunter growled. The truth hadn’t softened him one bit. “Your family’s debt is yours to bear.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
“Your blood destroyed ours!” Hunter roared. “There will be consequences!”
“Hunter,” Ash snapped. “Take it easy. She obviously didn’t know what Jordan was doing. And when she found out, she tried to stop him.”
“Not good enough! He should know the pain we suffered, be forced to watch his sister break the way we watched ours.”
Marigold’s heart leapt in fear. “If you hurt me, he won’t care. You’d be doing him a favor. I’m a threat to Jordan. I know the truth about the real monster he is. He wants me gone.”
“Then we’ll send you back to him.”
“No—”
“Don’t tell me no!” Hunter snarled. Stone caught his shoulder before he could touch her again.
“You have to relax, man.”
Her vision blurred with unshed tears. “I may share Jordan’s DNA, but I’m nothing like him.”
“Prove it,” Ash challenged, giving her a look that said she needed to convince them quickly, because there was no reeling Hunter in. “Tell us how to find your brother.”
Her shoulders curled inward, and her spine pressed into the wall. They were asking her to go against her family.
She didn’t care about betraying Jordon, but her father would never forgive her for turning against her own blood—despite all the times they turned against her, dismissing her truth as lies and abandoning her in that hellhole of a facility to rot until they fully fried her brains and turned her into a breathing corpse.
“I can try,” she finally said in a small voice.
Hunter’s smile was sharp as a blade. “Your brother has been very good at disappearing these past three months. Trying won’t be good enough. Either tell us how to get to him, or we send you back to the clinic and use you as bait.”
“He would never visit me?—”
“He’d have no choice. Your condition would be too critical to ignore.”
“Fucking hell, Hunter,” Ash snapped, pulling her protectively to his side.
Marigold’s heart hammered against her ribs. “I don’t know anything about his personal life. Jordan’s always been an extremely private person.”
“You know things we don’t. The kind of car he drives. Who his friends are. Where he spends his free time.”
“I really don’t.”
“You’re lying again.”
She might know some things, but not much. “I can tell you what I know, but, like I said, Jordan has always been a private person.”
“We’ll want to know everything you know.” Stone said, stepping closer to look her in the eyes. “His habits. His friends. His weaknesses. Every dirty secret you have is now ours.”
“Just like you’re ours.” Hunter reminded, looming over her as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Ash and Stone. “Understand?”
This was her only choice—if one could even call it a choice. But even as she nodded, Marigold couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d just signed a different kind of devil’s bargain. These men didn’t just want information—they wanted blood. Her family’s blood. She was now their greatest asset and an accomplice to whatever they planned.
