Only You (Adair Family #5)(99)

“What on—” I cried, instinct making me yank my wheel to the right to avoid a head-on collision. My body jolted, head slamming backward as the airbag burst from the steering wheel. A bang exploded in my ears, followed by a crunching sound and a loud hiss. Dazed, shaking with adrenaline, pain radiating down my neck, I tried to make sense of what had happened.

Before I could, my door was yanked open, and I felt the cold press of metal to my temple. Disbelief filled me as I glanced up and saw a masked figure peering into the car. The metal at my temple belonged to the muzzle of the gun in their hand.

Terror cut through my discombobulation.

“Get out of the car,” a male voice demanded. Was that voice familiar?

What the fuck?

“Now!” he barked.

Trembling, I unclipped my belt and pushed the airbag out of my way. My upper body groaned with pain from the crash, and as I staggered out of the car, I saw the front of it had crumpled when it hit the stone wall.

Headlights beamed in the distance, and I felt a surge of relief …

Until pain shot across the back of my head and everything went black.





36





Brodan





Monroe should have been home by now.

A feeling of dread came over me not long ago, and I’d called Monroe to check on her. No answer. I paced the cottage and tried phoning her again.

She hadn’t answered her phone in thirty minutes.

It wasn’t like her.

And she should be home by now.

I didn’t want to succumb to my paranoia and fear. Even though it had only been thirty minutes, I could not forget that my brother woke up to his first wife dead in his bed from an aneurysm, that Mum died in childbirth and our aunt Imogen followed her not too long later. That Robyn was almost taken out by Lucy, that Regan was hunted in the night by a bloke who’d become obsessed with her. That my sister was almost killed by an ex, and Eredine by her sister’s ex.

I didn’t want to believe we Adair men were cursed, but, fuck—it was hard not to when our women had been put through the wringer over the years.

Dread in the pit of my stomach would not abate.

My first thought was to phone Arran, but to tell him what? To look like a paranoid fool because my girlfriend wasn’t answering?

Glancing at my phone, I saw the time had crept up to forty minutes. “Fuck it,” I murmured and tried calling her again.

After two rings, I heard the click of the phone picking up, and my stomach stopped somersaulting. “Sunset?”

“I have your girlfriend,” an unfamiliar male voice answered, and icy fear froze me to the spot.

It took me a second to bite out, “Who the fuck is this?”

“I have your girlfriend,” he repeated. “And if you want her to remain alive, you’ll come alone. I’ll know if you don’t come alone, and I will kill her.”

Rage unlike anything I’d ever felt flooded my veins. “If you lay one hand on Monroe, I will end you. Do you hear me? I will fucking end you.”

“Let’s not waste time with empty threats. If you want your girlfriend to be alive next time you see her, you’ll come alone. I’m going to hang up and text you directions to a location. Be there in twenty minutes, or she dies.”

The fucker hung up before I could say anything else, and I stared blankly at my phone in shock. What was happening? Was this for ransom? Was it a crazy fan?

Then something occurred to me.

Shaw.

Steven Shaw.

The phone buzzed in my hand as my fury simmered to near exploding. The text from Monroe’s phone was directions to a cabin in Claymore Woods, a national scenic area inland from Caelmore, and while there would be some foot traffic there during the summer months, it was mostly isolated during the winter.

Hurrying upstairs, I fell to my knees at the bed and reached under it for the locked safe box I’d placed there when I’d started living with Roe. Inside was the Glock I had a license for. I’d trained to use weapons years ago for one of my first action roles. I grabbed its holster, stood and attached it to the back of my waistband. With the gun fitted safely into the holster, I pulled my jacket on over it to hide it.

Rushing downstairs, I grabbed my keys and phone and raced to my Range Rover.

I was about two minutes from the turnoff for where I was instructed to get out and walk into the woods. I hit the screen in the middle of my dash and tapped on recent calls. Finding Walker, I pressed his name. My hands shook with adrenaline.

He answered on two rings. “Can I call you back? We’re in the middle of—”

“Walk, someone has Roe.”

He was quiet for a second and then ordered, “Talk to me.”

I relayed what had happened and where I was.

“Don’t you move a muscle,” he commanded. “Stay in that fucking car, Brodan, until I can get a team to the location.”

Pulling to a stop, I switched off the engine and grabbed my phone. “I’m forwarding the text to you now. But I’m going in, Walk. He has Monroe, and I can’t just sit here.”

“Brodan, I swear to—”

“Just get here as fast as you can.” I hung up, put my phone on silent, and hopped out of the SUV. The small car park before the entrance to the woods was empty. There was no one in sight. Blood rushing in my ears, I struggled to hear over the whooshing as I stepped toward the path that would take me into the woods.