Page 73 of My Three Rivals

Wyatt held up a cracked android phone. “He called Lou.”

“You know Lou?” Nick cried. “Then you know! You know you can’t say no to that guy!”

Disgusted, I grabbed the phone from Wyatt, gun hand still posed on Nick as I scanned through the text messages between him and Lou.

My blood curdled at their talks, the blatant and open lines of how Lou fully intended to restart the pipeline and how Nick was going to help him.

“Where is Tegan now?” I hissed, throwing the phone to Maverick, who rushed toward the trembling addict as Sabrina cowered.

“I don’t know!” Nick protested. “I don’t—”

“He took me to the boats when he tried to sell me,” Sabrina mewled.

All of us whipped our heads toward the woman in shock.

“What?” I gasped. “Who the hell are you?”

“S-Sabby… Sabrina… Pickett,” she mumbled, her eyes rolling around. “I-I can tell you where if you give me twenty—no, fifty bucks.”

She grinned, her rotted teeth repelling me.

Again, I whipped back toward Nick, my disgust and rage toward him growing. “You let Lou take your wife?!”

Nick scoffed. “She’s my sister,” he snickered. “Like I’d marry a crackhead like her.”

I’d heard enough out of him, and the barrel of my gun knocked him unconscious as Sabrina gasped.

“Oh, I wish you hadn’t done that…” she mewled. “He’s gonna be mad when he wakes up…”

“You won’t be here,” I told her, grabbing her skinny arm. She screamed and fought me, but I drew her toward me, my eyes unflinching. “Do you want your money or not?”

The last cry died from her lips, and eagerness overtook her eyes. She nodded quickly, and I shuffled her toward the door, Wyatt and Maverick making way.

“Wait! I can’t—” Sabrina started to whine, but I cast her a look that shut her up.

“Put her in the car,” I told Wyatt, thrusting Sabrina toward him.

CHAPTER31

Tegan

Iwas so thirsty, but Lou didn’t return for what felt like an eternity. I ran my tongue over my lips, hoping to produce saliva, but the effort was futile.

My head pounded, the blow that had knocked me unconscious still blurring my vision, and I struggled to remain rational.

But all I could do was wallow deeper in shame as I looked desperately around for some kind of weapon or sharp edge to free myself from the binds.

They had foreseen this. They had warned me. Why didn’t I listen?

Tears filled my eyes and let them fall, only to taste the wetness against my tongue. I had to get out of there before Lou’s buyer came for me. I had no doubt that these lowlifes would all be armed and wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me. I was disposable, after all. I was just another woman to buy and sell on the open market.

Goddamn you, Emerson! If there’s a Hell, I hope you’re in the hottest, deepest pit of it, you bastard!

But my rage was useless here. I was useless. In the end, I had become what I’d always sworn I wouldn’t be—a helpless female, stuck and struggling.

Will would be laughing his ass off right now if he could see me. But Gran…

The thought of my grandmother, running the vineyard all alone for all those years, hoping that her family would keep the Pickett dream alive, suddenly gave me a wave of strength.

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