Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(44)

At that, he disconnected.

So now . . . I’m at the gravesite and I have the new phone in hand, but there are no instructions or stickers, and I’ve tried to redial but this phone has either never called out or the history has been deleted. I have never felt so defeated and without hope as I do now, sitting here at Eduardo Miguel’s mercy, praying he won’t hurt Lemy and that he will really let her go once he gets me.





The morning hours go by without word.

I’m losing my f*cking mind! What if I f*cked up? Made a mistake in my terror?

I flip the phone open again—like I have every half hour—to see if there’s a message I could have somehow missed.

The battery is still good.

I hold the phone to my forehead and will it to ring. Beg for it to ring!

Nothing!

It’s unbearable! I can’t sit here any longer. I have to do something.

“Don’t make a sound or move, Farrington,” says a familiar voice. “Don’t change your expression.”

My mouth drops open and my lungs hitch in a gasping breath of surprise.

Ryder!

“Look up if you’re alone, down if you’re being guarded.”

I let my eyes travel up the nearest tree trunk into the branches above.

“If you can talk freely, stretch and yawn.”

I think about that. I’ve been sitting here for hours and have neither seen nor heard from anyone. But how in the hell did he find me here?

Horror fuses through the marrow of my bones. No one knew where I was except for Miguel . . .

No. It’s impossible. After everything, he couldn’t be working for—

Every rational thought I have is swallowed by the irrationality of the fact that Ryder knows I’m here, right here in this graveyard, next to this grave. I’m positive I wasn’t followed. There is literally only one way he could know to find me here.

I stand and move towards the spot his voice came from. I take one step then two. Next thing I know, I’m charging through the thorny bushes that are behind Devereaux’s tomb.

I crash into Ryder full-force, punching and biting. “I TRUSTED YOU! I TRUSTED YOU!”

“Farrington, stop!”

I know he lets me punch him longer than he has to, but he finally grabs my wrists and pins my legs, laying on top of me, quickly incapacitating me.

“You son of a bitch!” I seethe and spit at his face. “She’s just a baby!”

His countenance is angry. “Jesus Christ, Farrington, I don’t know what the f*ck you’re talking about! What the hell are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“What am I doing here?” Furious blotches of color and light flash across my eyes. “How do you know where I am!?”

His eyes fill with concern. “Good Jesus, he has your sister.”

I’m not buying it. “How do you know?” I roar.

“The necklace, Farrington—the clover—it’s a GPS tracker.”

I’m stunned silent. Did I hear him correctly? Is he serious? Confusion grips my mind. And a wave of relief so strong it threatens to bring me to my knees.

“I couldn’t just hand you over to the feds with no recourse. I had to know you were safe and I have serious trust issues.” Ryder looks away. “That was a huge violation of your privacy and I’m . . . not sorry because the truth is, I’d do it again.”

I’m not sorry either. Not at all.

At that moment, the phone begins to ring, back next to the grave where I dropped it. Without being asked, Ryder jumps off me fast, and I crawl-scramble to the phone.

I flip it open. “I’m here!”

“Were you followed?” Miguel asks.

“No,” I answer, staring directly at Ryder. “No one followed me.”

“For her sake, I hope you’re right. She’s a very beautiful child.”

I cringe. “I want to know she’s okay.”

“I here, Waychul. When we go home?”

“Lemy, I’m here! I’m going—”

He must have put the phone to her mouth for only a second before taking it back. “The girl is unharmed. For now.”

“What do you want me to do? I’ll do anything.” I begin to break down in tears. “Just please, don’t hurt her.”

“Keep track of the time. At exactly eight p.m. be at the Toulouse Streetcar stop on the Loyola line. Make sure no police recognize you—if you’re stopped or delayed for any reason, she dies. You get on and sit down at the front of the streetcar when the doors open, and I will let her off the back.”

“How can I know you’ll keep your word and let her off the streetcar?”

“You’ll have to trust me, little dove,” Miguel croons through the phone and hangs up.

Dove is the code name the FBI used for me.

“NO!” I scream into the dead phone.

“Farrington, it’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not! It’s never going to be okay! He has people everywhere.” I pace through the grass, the morning dew drenching my shoes. “My sister and I are going to die because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now no one can make us safe—not the cops or the FBI—not even you. Because he’ll never quit. Miguel will never stop until I’m dead.”