Page 155 of Kings & Corruption

I froze and turned off the flashlight, then waited to see if I would hear it again. I didn’t, and I continued forward, assuming it had been a deer.

It was a mistake, and one I realized a moment later when strong arms grabbed me from behind. I struggled, panic rising in my body, threatening to black out everything else.

I remembered my gym session with Oscar and opened my mouth to scream. “Get the fuck off —“

I hand came down over my mouth, followed by a string of curse words.

And then, the cold barrel of a gun against my head.

Chapter70

Oscar

Itapped my foot on the floor of the hall, my eyes on the door to the women’s restroom. I’d watched Willa snake her way out of the ballroom and had immediately done the same, pushing and shoving in order to keep her in my line of sight.

I fucking hated this. I hated that she couldn’t have one night to dance and have fun with her friends without a security detail.

But I also knew it was necessary, and as much as I hated it, the alternative was un-fucking-acceptable.

I was in way too deep. Thinking about something happening to her, about the light that fucking lit up my world leaving her eyes, sent me into a panic unlike anything I’d ever felt.

I’d had loss in my life. Plenty of it. But I didn’t know if I would survive losing her.

And I wasn’t the only one. Somehow this girl had us all by the balls and she didn’t even know it.

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. What thefuckwas she doing in there? I wasn’t one to time a lady in the bathroom — I mean, it took how long it took — but she’d been in there for ten minutes, presumably alone since two other girls had exited almost as soon as Willa went inside.

Finally, I pushed off the wall. Fuck it. She would be pissed, but she was adorable when she was pissed.

And sometimes, a little scary, which was just as much of a turn on.

I pushed open the door. “You alive in h— ”

I froze, my eyes drawn to the open window over the last stall, a ceiling panel slightly displaced just above it.

“Motherfucker.”

I was already running for the weapons we’d stashed in the Hummer when I opened my phone to text Neo and Rock.

Chapter71

Willa

There were two of them, something I only realized when I’d been dragged into the cabin and the second man closed the creaky door, shutting us inside.

The first man was stronger than me, but he still grunted as he hauled me backwards, resisting my attempts to struggle against him until he finally shoved me against one of the cabin walls.

“Bitch!” he snarled.

I went sprawling, smacking my face against the wall of the cabin as I tried to regain my footing.

I backed against the wall and tried to get my bearings. I’d been right about the lamp inside the cabin, except it wasn’t a modern camping lamp, it was one of those old-fashioned ones that used oil or kerosene. Its flame cast strange shadows on the walls, like a scene straight out of a horror movie where I deserved to die because I’d left my phone and come without the Kings.

The cabin was small, a single room with a tiny bathroom visible beyond the half-open door across from where I stood. There was a decrepit table and a couple of chairs, a ratty old soda, the stuffing coming out in tufts, and a stained mattress on the floor I didn’t want to think about.

The first man stood facing me, the gun pointed at my face, his eyes wide behind a ski mask like the one that had been worn by my pursuer in the woods. The other man was wearing a ski mask too, and I flinched when he walked toward a shovel leaning against the wall.

“Hurry up,” the first man said.

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