The crack of gunfire fills the room, cutting off Emma’s scream. Through Father’s desk, I see her crumple to the ground, her arms still stretching for the door. Crimson blooms on the back of her shoulder.
“No.” I whisper the word. Or maybe I yell it. My ears ring from the explosion of the gun.
Fingers grasp my arm and yank me along the carpet.
“Get off me!” I claw at her hand. She used up her bullet—and her advantage.
I try to stand, but pain screams in my right hip where it connected with the wood floor. I grab hold of Father’s desk, try to anchor myself there, and Alana grimaces as she tugs at me. “I don’t want to hurt you, Piper.”
The gunshot still rings in my ear, and her words seem distant, as if my ears are filled with cotton. “You shot Emma!” The circle of red on her back grows ever bigger, and she’s eerily still against the wall. Is she alive? Please, God. “Emma!”
A scream overcomes the room, only it isn’t me or Emma. It’s Alana. She releases me and swats at Sidekick, whose jaws are clamped around her ankle. She raises her pistol, and before I can stop it, she knocks the butt of the gun against his skull.
He releases her with a yap and staggers away, handing me a window of opportunity.
I throw my left leg across her and collapse all my weight onto her stomach. She groans as the air rushes out of her body. “What is wrong with you?” The girl yelling doesn’t sound like me. I hold down Alana’s arms and push her flat against the floor. “How could you shoot her? I told you, I don’t know anything!”
“Don’t protect him, Piper,” she gasps out. “He killed Lydia.”
He what?! My hands fall from her wrists. “That’s impossible. Matthew loved her.”
Alana’s left hand snatches my collar, yanks me close. “And that’s what killed her.”
In my peripheral, I catch the shadow of something in her right hand—the lamp? Then the nape of my neck erupts in pain, and the world is dark.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
The world around me is shadowed. But at least I’m aware it exists. And that there are voices in it.
“The answer is no, Maeve.” It’s a male voice, graveled with a hint of Irish burr. “We’re trying to run a business here.”
Who is that? Where am I? Gray light filters through my eyelashes as I try to open them, and a blade of pain slices through my skull. I’m lying in something sticky. I raise my head, gritting my teeth against the searing pain, and force open my eyes.
Blood. And from the burning of my cheek and forehead, I would guess it’s my own.
My hands instinctively reach to grasp hold of my head, only they’re stuck behind my back. I tug, but they’re attached at the wrists. Rope? Did that blasted Alana tie me up?
“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t an emergency.” Alana.
“You seem to have a lot of emergencies. We helped you out last time because I owed my cousin a favor, even if he is an idiot. And I loved Alan. But we already have the cops breathing down our necks. Another dead society broad is the last thing we need.”
Fear streaks up my spine. I blink as my vision starts to clear. A car. I’m in the back of a car. Grainy light filters through the window, but it’s too blinding to see any landmarks.
Is Emma here too? Wherever “here” is?
“Emma?” I try to call. But the sound never makes it past the rag shoved in my mouth.
“She knows where Jacob is, I can feel it.” Alana’s voice is high and desperate. “We could finally get justice for what he did to Alan. To our family name.”
“Maeve.” The name—Alana’s name?—is sharp on his tongue. “No.”
“It’s Timothy Sail’s daughter. Her dad is the reason Colin rots in jail. I’m handing you your best chance for revenge, Uncle Pat.”
Pat? As in Patrick Finnegan? Panic fills my veins, and I strain at the ropes binding my wrists and ankles. I have to get them loose. If I want to survive this, I have to break free. I have to be clearheaded and smart.
But it feels as if my brain is wrapped in gauze, like I have to cut through layers upon layers to form a thought. And I need coherent thoughts right now. I need them like never before.
“I’m not your uncle. And even if I ignored that, the Cassanos would gun me down faster than you can say ‘Mariano’s girl.’”
My vision starts to edge in black as fatigue saturates my body.
No, not yet. I have to fight. I have to find some way to leave behind a clue for those who are looking for me. I force my brain to catalog every article of clothing I put on this morning. My feet are bare. I could try to tear my dress whenever Alana gets me out of the car, but that’s a gamble I don’t want to wait for. My knife is in my handbag, back in Father’s office.
“But if you would just—”
“Am I being unclear, Maeve?”
My locket—has it survived so far?
The silver oval winks in the waning sunlight, and the stab of pain that shoots through my head is worth it. If I can get it off, maybe I can drop it on the ground when the door is opened. I have to try and leave some kind of trail.