Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“I asked you a question.”
So I answered, even though my words came out garbled. “No.”
He smiled, leaning forward and licking away the tears from the left side of my cheek. “Your doctor.”
I started to cry. “My doctor?”
It came out sounding more like “myfofor?”
He understood, though.
Likely because he was used to having bound and gagged women he had to understand when he was asking them questions.
“Yeah, the one that you started to see. They’re not very good about HIPAA violations. He had all kinds of things to say about you. He had no problem sharing the information with a fellow asthma doctor at our latest asthma convention. Do you know you’re one of like fifteen cases worldwide that takes the same stack of medication?”
I flinched.
I hadn’t thought about that.
But of course he would have thought to look for my doctors.
It wasn’t like I had the choice but to use a doctor.
I had to have the medication to stay alive.
And that same medication that was supposed to save my life was about to kill me.
I knew I was about to be killed, too.
No one would think to look at these two men. Hux would look, sure. Creed would tear the county apart. But there were over twelve hundred square miles of land in the Jesper County district—something I knew because my brother was a game warden for that same square mileage.
Even worse, Sage and I had done a deep dive into Randel’s life after he’d left. We’d confirmed that he’d moved to Georgia and accepted a position there.
His profiles were all very public, and we’d thought we were in the clear for seeing him around town. Odin had come in while we were talking about it, and even he knew where Randel had gone to work next.
And who would suspect the sweet and cute Chan?
He was the size of a child. Plus, he did not give off a serial killer vibe at all.
Not to mention, when comparing him to the UNSUB that the FBI had been looking for…neither one of them fit the target. Nor was there ever mention of two men.
Neither man looked anything like the man I’d seen in the bathroom at that hospital. Randel had changed, somehow. A beard, darker hair. Bushier eyebrows.
Even worse, based on the light still outside, no one even knew that I was gone yet.
“No comment?” Randel asked, sitting back with a small smile.
I shook my head as my breaths came faster and faster.
He clicked his tongue as he reached into his pocket and produced my inhaler.
When Hux did it, it was cute. When Randel did it, it was terrifying.
He yanked down my gag and left it lying around my neck, the part that’d been in my mouth soaking my long-sleeved t-shirt that was not cutting it with this cold.
Randel put the inhaler to my mouth, and I had no choice but to inhale when he depressed the button.
I had to stay alive.
That was the only way that Hux and Creed were going to find me.
“Now,” Chan said as he walked closer. “About that torture?”
I closed my eyes.
“You know, you look a lot like your mother,” Randel mused as Chan stopped so close that I could feel his body heat.
My breathing, miraculously, slowed. But my heart rate did not.
It skyrocketed as my mind started to run in every direction, wondering what was in store for me.
Did my mom fight?
Was she scared?
Why did I even care?
She was not a good mother. She was actually the worst part of my life, at least until this very instant. She’d ruined my childhood. Sent my big brother to prison. Laughed in my face when I confronted her, and told me “good riddance.”
I shouldn’t care about her fate.
Yet, I did.
“Y’all have the same eyes.” Chan ran his soft fingers over my face. “The same hair. The same build. But she screamed, a lot. She had a mouth on her.” A burning pain encircled my neck. Quick and fast, like lightning. The gasp that left my throat had me inhaling my own hair. “I slit her neck exactly like that. Only deeper. She bled out in a minute and thirty-seven seconds.”
I felt the blood start to drip down my throat, long rivulets leaving the cut he’d just sliced on my throat and stopping at the collar of my shirt.
“Chan,” Randel warned. “Calm yourself.”
“Calm myself?” Chan asked. “You taught me that revenge is necessary, sir. And this has been coming for a long time.”
“It has, yes,” Randel agreed. “But if you finish this early, I’m going to be angry with you.”
Chan actually looked sheepish, as if he’d let his anger get the best of him.
“I allowed you to take your anger out on those other women,” Randel continued his reprimand. “However, you’ve almost gotten us caught. You need to control yourself, or this isn’t going to go our way. We have a procedure for a reason. It’s what keeps us in business.”