“Everyone acts like they’re criminals. What they are is businessmen who know how to run profitable businesses. I know you and Emma are against them, but Carter seems to think they’re okay.”
“They’re not okay,” she said, reaching for her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Uber.”
“I said I’d give you a ride.” His voice was rising with anger.
“I don’t need one, thank you.”
She walked away from him, down a covered walk that divided the parking lot. She saw him slap the air at her in a huff and stomp toward his car. Her Uber app told her a car would reach her in seven minutes. Good.
Her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Ambulance here. Shoot out. Peg and Carreras injured. Will call soon.
“Holy God.” She stared at the screen in shock. She wanted to call him. Knew she should wait for his call.
“Hey,” a male voice growled near her ear.
She jumped in fear. She hadn’t heard him approach.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” he said in a gravelly voice she was sure was deliberately disguised. Something hard was pressed to the small of her back.
She wasn’t going to be taken hostage. She would take the risk.
But he seemed to outguess her because as she jumped forward, half-expecting the shot, he took back the gun and slammed it against the side of her head. Pain exploded inside her skull. She staggered and went down on one knee and he dragged her to a nearby car. A dark Ford sedan. She twisted to try to see the license plate, but he had her in the passenger seat too fast.
He wore a hoodie, a ski mask, and gloves. His lips were curved in a cold smile.
“Won’t be needing this,” he said and yanked her cell from her hand, tossing it into the bushes. Andi flung herself upward and then she was hit with a bolt of electricity that made the world disappear for a few seconds.
Tased, she thought, when she could arrange her thoughts again.
He’d zip-tied her hands and feet, buckled her into the seat, then circled the car to the driver’s seat.
She focused on what she could see of his face. The laughing mouth . . . those eyes . . .
Not Ben . . . Carter . . .
“Hello, little bird,” he purred, then lifted her limp head so he could rim her lips possessively with his tongue.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She nearly retched.
Carter was behind all of it.
Her stomach turned inside out at the thought of his disgusting kiss, if that’s what you could call it.
This can’t be happening, Andi thought wildly, her body still shaking, her brain rattling in her skull as she twitched in the seat of the unfamiliar car, and he stood in the open doorway, light from the interior spilling into the darkened parking lot. He was in silhouette for a second as she glanced at him. Dear God, did he have an erection?
Another surge of nausea washed over her and she wished she could leap to her feet, kick him in his nuts, and turn his own weapon on him.
She found it nearly impossible to believe that he had orchestrated it all: the threats, the misdirections, the “accidents,” and the cold-blooded murders.
Traitor. Killer. Freak. And pure, raw evil.
Pain surged through her. Her nerves didn’t seem connected to her mind, her arms and legs trembling wildly within her bonds. She wanted to fight, to scream, but even she couldn’t get out words that made any sense. The world was spinning, her eyes unable to focus on anything. Through the dirty windshield the sky collided with the ground, then spun. Still, she caught a glimpse of the eyes staring smugly from behind his mask. She’d trusted him. Thought of him as family. Never would have believed he was the mastermind behind the terror she’d come to know. Or was that just a lie she was telling herself now? She’d always kept him at arm’s length, hadn’t she? She’d sensed he wasn’t completely on the up-and-up.
But a stone-cold murderer?
How had she missed it? And how could she escape and warn the world, turn the tables on this cruel, perverted bastard? She shivered, as much from fear as the effects of the Taser.
Help me. Please, God, someone help me.
She thought of Luke and his last strange, chilling message: shootout here.
Was he injured? Who had been shot? Why? Did it have anything to do with Carter? The images in her mind swam and ran together, but if she could only reach Luke . . . kiss him . . . touch him . . . love him . . .
She blinked. Realized she was fading out. But she refused to fall victim to the blackouts that had once snuck up on her. She blinked. Tried to focus. Luke would be all right. He had to be.
Pain made it impossible to struggle, her muscles refusing to obey her mind’s commands. She attempted to break free, somehow escape, but her body was still twitching and jolting.
“Don’t,” he warned. “I will kill you. If you scream, or so much as utter a word, I swear to God, I’ll pull the trigger.”
She believed him, and yet words slipped out, shaking on her tongue. “Please, Carter, don’t do this!”