Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 133213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
“They’re important to me,” Zach replied.
Since fucking when did Zach speak French?
Huisman got in close, proving he wasn’t afraid of the man who had at least fifty pounds of muscle on him. “Then you’ll go quietly. I’m having you escorted to a remote site. My business with you is different than my business with the Taggarts. You might survive if you give me what I want. If you don’t want to go quietly, I can kill these two right now. As I said, they’re of no true importance. I have my Taggart daughter, and I intend to have such fun with her.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Zach said quietly.
Huisman patted his cheek, a condescending gesture. “I’m sure you’ll try. Are you going quietly or shall I start killing them now?”
Zach’s hands came up, and he threaded his fingers together behind his head, the action his reply. He stared stoically ahead as one of the guards brought down first his right and then his left hand behind his back, snapping cuffs on his wrists.
Whatever Zach had done, he wasn’t giving them up and he could have. Zach likely could have fought his way out or at least tried, but he hadn’t.
Because he wasn’t willing to put them in danger.
“We’ll come for you, brother,” Tristan called out as they led him away.
Zach’s head turned. “Tell Devi…fuck…tell her I’m so fucking sorry. And Coop…just tell them all I’m sorry.”
They carted Zach off, and he was left with Huisman.
“Now we can have fun,” Huisman said, clapping his hands. “I have some excellent wine. Let’s sit down, you and I, and discuss your boss. But first, would you like a tour?”
This man was insane. “Sure. Why not?”
“This is the house I lived in when I was young,” Huisman announced. “You’re standing right about where my father died. Our lovely doctor is sitting where Rebecca Walsh was sitting. My father hated her. Women in the workplace. They fuck everything up. That’s where we went wrong, you know. We gave up our biological roles in favor of this equality nonsense.”
He was down to two guards. Huisman had split his troops. There had been five, and one was dead on the floor and still had his gun in his holster. Huisman held the one he’d killed the man with, so the guard he’d taken it from was down a firearm. Not that the men left weren’t loaded up, but it could be the second or two difference he needed.
If he could figure out how to get Carys out of those fucking restraints.
Would she think to try to break the chair? It’s what he would do. Would she react quickly enough?
“Fuck them women,” Tristan said drolly. “Get back in the kitchen. That’s what I always say.”
“Somehow I think you don’t,” Huisman countered. “But then your mother wasn’t a whore. I actually admire her. She managed to make an enormous amount of money and didn’t have to leave her children behind.”
“Your mother didn’t leave you. She divorced your father.” He knew a little about Huisman, too. “At least that’s what you wrote in your biography.”
He would do or say anything to put off the moment when Huisman eventually decided to go for blood.
“I wrote what people want to hear. They like a pathetic man who allows the world to walk all over him. Kindness. It’s weakness. My father tried to teach me, and when he was taken too early, my grandfather took over my education. He never allowed me to forget what had been taken from me and what is owed to me by the man who started it all.”
“He blames the Taggarts for everything,” Carys said. “It’s why he’s got her upstairs. He gave her a paralytic and some kind of medicine… He’s torturing her, Tris.”
“Like her father tortured me,” Huisman replied.
“No, not like that,” Carys argued.
Huisman nodded, and suddenly the guards were on either side of Tristan.
Damn it. He knew what was coming. He knew it before Huisman set his gun down and picked up the straight cutter.
“Don’t,” Tristan shouted, fighting the hold he was in.
Huisman held it up, showing everyone how it would work. “I think your bitch needs to know to obey when I tell her to keep her mouth shut. Shall we start with your pinkie finger? I can take them off one at a time.”
Tristan tried to pull away again. This couldn’t fucking happen. It couldn’t.
“Carys,” he called out.
Huisman simply smiled and put her finger through that fucking thing. “You know I watched it. I watched him kill my father. I was sitting right up there.”
“You mean here, Manny?” a deep voice said.
Tristan looked up, and Ben Parker stood on the balcony above, a rifle in his hands and his enemy in his sights.
Tris began his fight.
Chapter Eighteen
Aidan forced himself to stay sitting when all he wanted to do was run into that fucking house and put bullets into people until he found Carys and Tris.