“Oh, my God. I forgot.”
Positioning my bound arms on the sharp edge of one of the chair legs, I furiously sawed my wrists up and down just like he’d taught me until the tape snapped, freeing my arms. Climbing to my knees, I shook the shit out of Sarah and glanced at the clock again.
“Get up!” I coughed while covering my mouth. “We have less than seven minutes!”
Shattering glass pulled my attention away as a square piece of thick metal with a huge stick attached to it repeatedly slammed through the window. As soon as all the glass disappeared, a man tumbled onto the floor in a heap.
As fire raged around me, all I could think of to say was, “Was that a carjack?”
Groaning, Alex crawled over to me, “Where’s the kid?”
“She’s not here.” I coughed. “I thought you were dead?”
“So did they,” he growled. “Damn, I had a chance! If I knew they didn’t have the kid—”
“You wouldn’t have come back,” I finished for him.
Darkness consumed me, and in the midst of chaos, I fell into the abyss.
“Fuck this.” He covered his mouth and nose with the inside of his elbow. “You Harcourts have ruined my life. Burn in hell, bitch.”
I didn’t remember picking up the chair. However, when I swung it, the wood splintered, and Agent Alex Atwood hit the floor with a muffled grunt.
“You first,” I hissed.
Then I noticed something shiny beside his pocket. Dropping to my knees, I grabbed his keys off the floor and crawled toward the window.
Three minutes.
Chapter Forty-Four
Mateo
Present Day
“Jesus, Leighton, what have you done?”
Leighton’s entire body coiled. “Don’t you dare judge me,” she wheezed, exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes. “He killed my father. He blackmailed me and kept my child from me. All he cared about was saving his own ass.” Finally, she shivered. “They’re all alike.”
That shiver gave her away. Slaying her dragon didn’t stop him from breathing fire. I couldn’t extinguish a flame that burned inside of her. There would always be another dragon. Another monster. Another Finn. Another Emilio. Another Alex.
In my understanding, I reached for her.
“Don’t,” she said, cringing and stepping back.
“You have blood on your hands, Leighton, and for what? Some fucked up revenge that won’t make you feel any better?”
“Won’t make me feel any better? Are you fucking kidding me? I feel like a cloud has been lifted.”
The way she talked sounded too familiar. Too brutal. Too cartel. “You’re in over your head. These people will chew you up and spit you out.”
She lifted her chin. “Not if I bite first.”
She had no clue what the hell she was talking about. Leighton was a tiny tiger fish swimming with a school of great white sharks. The high she rode right now wouldn’t last. As soon as reality set in, she’d crash and burn. Unfortunately, the blood she’d spilled would still be fresh, and the great whites would come calling.
Unless...
“Your mother thinks you’re dead,” I reminded her, the thought resurrecting itself in my mind. “I’ll say I did this.”
At the mention of her mother’s name, Leighton gave me a pensive stare. “I have to tell you something else.”
“If it’s about your call to Professor Bright, you can save your breath. He called me not long after you took off. I know everything.”
Leighton lifted her heavy lashes. “Then you’ll understand what I have to show you.” Holding onto the trees for support, she stumbled past me. “Let’s go back to the car.”
Thirty minutes later, we sat in the front seat of Atwood’s wrecked sedan. The car was fucked up. I had no clue how she managed to start the damn thing, much less drive it. But I didn’t care about that—not while staring at the small black wristband laying on the seat between us. At first glance it looked just like one of those Fitbit bracelets worn by obsessed exercise fanatics.
Leighton ran her finger along the sleek band and smiled. “My dad was a detective. He told me all about how his department used to bust drug dealers. They’d plead out as informants, so he’d wire them and send them back into the lion’s den to get a confession.”
“This is a recording device?” I asked.
She nodded, an almost proud look crossing her face.
“Where the hell did you get something like that?”
“How do you think politicians get shit done?” Anticipating my next question, she cut me off. “You should know better than anyone that elected officials in this town are figureheads, Mateo. It’s their aides who run the show.”
Only one woman had been by Lilith’s side long enough to garner that kind of power.
“Jackie?”
“Jackie,” she confirmed, seemingly pleased with herself. “And believe me, I didn’t have to twist her arm, either. Although after the way we left things, I don’t think we’ll be seeing her again.”
As the rain beat against what was left of the windshield, I remembered the message Leighton left her mother. “Is this what that phone call to your mother was all about?”
She wasn’t expecting that. I could tell because she pawed at her throat, grasping for a symbol of security that wasn’t there. “How do you know about that?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes. I called her, Emilio, and Alex.” As if needing a replacement for her missing pendant, she picked up the wristband and twirled it between her fingers. “There’s only sixteen hours of battery life on this thing, so I had to kill three birds with one stone.”
“Obviously, something happened.”
“Yeah, Alex happened. I walked right into their trap.” Holding up the wristband, she waved it between us. “You know, this thing started the ball rolling today, but after everything went wrong, I forgot I even had it on. Kind of crazy, huh?”
“Leighton, every minute of the last eleven days have been crazy. Care to elaborate?”
“My mother always liked to think everyone was beneath her, but when it came down to it, she and Emilio shared the same fatal flaw.”
“Which is?”
“Pathological narcissism.” Her response sounded so clinical that I raised an eyebrow which she answered with a snort. “Neither of them could kill me without bragging in detail about what they’d done. And this?” she said, tapping the band against her other palm. “This recorded it all. It’ll condemn her, but...”
“But what?” I asked, noticing the pained expression in her eyes.
“Mateo, what if Stella is hurt? What if—?”
“Stop!” I yelled, maybe a bit too loud because she jumped, but I wouldn’t let her say the word, let alone think it. “We’ll find our little star, Leighton.”
Even as I heard myself make the promise, I wasn’t sure I believed it. I’d seen the sick things humans were capable of doing firsthand, especially to children.