Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
I swallowed, staring at her. “Alex?”
Why wasn’t she talking?
She shuffled the stuff in her bag, refusing to look at me.
“Alex.”
Finally, she said in a low voice, “We’re on an island. In North America.”
“Canada?”
She hesitated.
“Where in North America?” I pressed. “East Coast, West Coast, New England…?”
But she just spun around, taking her canteen into the bathroom and refilling it.
An island…
Was it deserted? Was it near the mainland? Shit. There were millions of islands out there.
“Alex?” I barked.
Goddammit.
But she whisper-yelled at me. “Emmy, shut up.”
I glanced at the door again, remembering we had a house full of men on the other side who didn’t know she was here.
And even though I was glad she was, she wasn’t putting me at ease.
I don’t know why you’re here, she’d said. So she knew why she was here, then?
“How long have you been here?” I demanded.
How long had she been hiding in the walls? I heard those sounds the night I arrived. She hadn’t been hiding that long, right?
But even as the thought occurred to me, I watched her eyes shift as she filled her bottle, and the fury boiled over.
“I arrived on the shipment like you,” she said in a low voice.
I charged over, grabbed her water bottle, and threw it. I fisted her collar and shoved her away, growling. She stumbled backward, tripped over the toilet, and fell onto the ground, landing on her ass. She broke the fall with her hands and her eyes flew up to me.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I gritted out as quietly as I could. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to me?”
All this time. She’d been watching all of us. What the hell was going on?
She breathed hard, but she never blinked. She knew she’d fucked up.
“You’ve been hiding in the walls,” I pointed out. “It didn’t occur to you at some point to grab me, too?”
“Of course, it did,” she said, climbing to her feet again and picking up her bottle. “It just got complicated.”
I closed the distance between us and swatted her about fifteen times lightly in the chest. Goddamn her.
“Are you hitting my boobs?” She batted at my hands. “Seriously.”
I didn’t know what was going on, and while I was momentarily grateful not to be as alone as I thought, I had no doubt she had the answers I wanted and was refusing to give them to me.
This was bullshit.
She caught her breath, and I stood there, not at all scared if she decided to hit me back.
But she didn’t. She just cocked an eyebrow, saying, “Save it for the plutocrats. You need me.”
I stood there, about ready to hit her again, but she was right. I had a much better chance of getting out of here with her.
She refilled the water bottle that I’d spilled when I threw it, and I stalked back into the bedroom, throwing on the underwear and bra she gave me. I didn’t put on the clothes yet, because if I faced the guys again, they’d wonder where I got them.
I pulled on Aydin’s Oxford and tied up my wet hair into a ponytail with a rubber band I’d snatched from the asparagus in the fridge.
“Listen…” Alex entered the room, stuffed the bottle into the bag and tossed the duffle into the passageway again. “We guessed Will was sent here several months ago—maybe a year or more, we don’t know exactly. He’d been using and drinking, and we figured with his grandfather’s re-election coming up, Senator Grayson took matters into his own hands before Will became a liability.”
A year… So, he had been here that long. At least.
“We couldn’t get him out because no one would tell us where it was,” she told me, “but we could get someone in.”
Me?
But no. She said she didn’t know why I was here.
So, that meant they sent her?
“Michael, Kai, Damon…” I rattle off, “and they sent you?”
She stared at me, but the hesitation in her eyes said it all.
“No,” she finally admitted. “Michael was coming. I… I micked him before the pick-up.”
I narrowed my eyes. She roofied him? “Why?” I searched for words. “Alex, why would you volunteer for this? A woman would be in so much more danger. It’s crazy.”
Her gaze faltered, and she didn’t answer me. Why would she put herself in such unnecessary risk when anyone could’ve come for Will?
Unless…
Unless she loved him.
That was the only reason she’d come in Michael Crist’s place. She thought only she’d be able to bring Will home.
My stomach coiled and jealousy rolled through me, making my heart pound. It was my place to save him. Not hers.
But it was ridiculous for me to have such a thought, I knew that.
I was jealous, though. I knew their history and I liked Alex—more than I wanted to—but somehow it hadn’t hurt until now, because she just had this way about her that made you all warm and want to be wherever she was. It was impossible to hate her.