Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(8)

She yanked her head away and knocked at his hand with her bound hands.

He abruptly crouched down in front of her, propping his hands on the thighs of his ratted-out jeans, and she recognized him as the one who had hit her in the van. His eyes were dark, all pupils, as he gazed at her. “I like that you still have some fire in you.”

“C’mon, Rowdy.” Greasy Hair called him away. “Let’s go talk.”

Relief warred with the constant fear inside her as they filed out of the room. All except New Guy. The big one. He lingered, staring at her with that unreadable gaze. Maybe Greasy Hair wasn’t in charge anymore. New Guy seemed so in control, so powerful, it was hard to imagine him taking orders from anyone else.

She held his gaze, hoping that maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t like the rest of them. It was a flimsy hope, but she clung to it like a frayed ribbon in her hands. He hadn’t been there when they took her. He didn’t look happy to see her here. Maybe he could help her. Maybe. He was strong, well over six feet, his body hard and muscled beneath his shirt. He held some influence if they had thought to show her to him, after all.

She tried to speak into the rag, leaning forward in supplication. They locked eyes and for a breath she thought she saw something flicker in the depths of his gaze. Some kind of emotion. Then it was gone—if it had ever existed at all.

With a single shake of his head, he clasped the doorknob and shut the door, sealing her once again inside her prison.



Reid’s head was spinning as he made his way down the hallway and into the main room of the house.

The president’s daughter.

They had abducted the f*cking president’s daughter.

The litany ran through his head like a bullet train. He could hardly think of anything else, which was bad considering he came here for one thing and one thing only and it had nothing to do with Grace Reeves.

“Shit, man, I can’t believe you busted out.” Zane clapped him on the back again. At this point he would have bruises tomorrow.

The rest of the guys dropped off in various spots in the living room. No one was concerned with the presence of the gagged woman in the back room. He wondered if she had eaten. Or used the restroom. They’d had her since yesterday. Had they seen to any of her needs?

One guy immediately lit up a joint, while another one sat in front of the beat-up coffee table and started shaking cocaine out of a sack. Some things never changed. They were all still a bunch of drug dealing burnouts. That’s what Otis Sullivan wanted them to be—what he had always wanted them to be. Mindless drones subject to him.

Reid glanced around, taking in the sagging mouths and dilated eyes of every guy present, including his own brother. They didn’t have a care in the world or a thought in their heads. Not a single one sober and yet they were the most hunted men in America right now.

And he had just joined their ranks.

“What you gonna do with the girl?” he asked, trying to sound casual, as though it didn’t matter one way or another to him. As though he couldn’t still see her face, her eyes, in his mind.

“I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.” His brother shifted on his feet and shot a cagey look at Rowdy. Instantly, Reid knew he was lying. They had a plan. For whatever reason, his brother wasn’t partial to sharing that information with him. Apparently, some things had changed after all. Zane didn’t fully trust him anymore.

“You got no plan? So you just grabbed her for the hell of it?” He moved to the rusted fridge in the kitchen and pulled it open, peering inside as though the question didn’t weigh on him like a ton of bricks. Any minute this place could be swarming with FBI, and he was pretending the biggest concern on his mind was what he could feed his stomach.

Zane spoke up, an edge of defensiveness in his tone. “We gotta wait for word from Sullivan.”

Of course. Sullivan. He still pulled all the strings.

“Yeah?” He took a breath, trying to play it cool even though what he really wanted to do was shake his brother for letting Sullivan call the shots. “Why’d Sullivan want you to grab her anyway?”

Zane considered him as he sank down on the couch and accepted a joint from the guy next to him. He lifted a bottle of beer and took a long swig, still staring at Reid.

Rowdy bent over the coffee table and snorted a line of coke, tossing his head back with a deep gasp. The guy’s nose was so red it looked ready to fall off.

“Don’t know if Sullivan would want me to talk to you about this,” Zane finally said. “You two didn’t part on good terms.”

That would be because Sullivan was the reason he went to jail. Guess Zane had forgotten that. Or he just didn’t care. Hell, maybe all the drugs and booze had fried his brains.

Reid opened up a tube of tinfoil and sniffed at the burrito inside. “Come on, man,” he coaxed, peeling back the tortilla and taking a peek inside at the questionable contents. “I’m your brother. Just busted out of jail and I came straight here. If I had any hard feelings, would I be here? Hell, no. I would have gone straight to Mexico.”

Sniffing, Rowdy pinched at his nose as if his sinuses troubled him. “Got a point there.”

Zane and Reid stared at each other for a long moment, unspoken words passing between them. Finally his brother shrugged and took another hit off his joint. “We’re not going to kill her. At least not yet. Waiting for Sullivan to tell us what to do with her.”