Why I gave a shit about what Em ate, I didn’t know. This wasn’t me—I didn’t worry about women, or take care of them. Feed them. Okay, so I kept an eye on my sister, but she didn’t count. I grabbed a couple handfuls of chips and dropped them on the paper plates next to the sandwiches, then tucked two bottles of water under my arm. Em was so not getting an energy drink. Fuck. Like I needed her more riled up …

When I entered the upstairs room, I felt like an even bigger dick because they were obviously hungry.

“You’ve got ten minutes,” I said, unlocking their cuffs. I frowned at Em, then pulled out a chair from the desk, spinning it around to straddle it. Both girls ignored me pointedly, tearing into the food like starving prisoners.

Then again, I guess they were.

“In a minute we’re going to call your dad,” I said. “Let him know you’re alive, and find out if he’s made any progress.”

No response. My mood grew darker as they finished their food, Em still refusing to look at me.

“Lie down again.”

I cuffed Sophie first, then walked around to Em. I leaned over, then felt something touch my back. Fuck, were there spiders in here?

Sophie shrieked and spat a mouthful of blood at me. The fuck?!

“Jesus Christ!” I yelled, because I shit you not.

Bitch. Spat. Blood.

“Oh my God, are you all right?” Em screeched at Sophie, nearly taking out my eardrums in the process. “Hunter, you need to get her to a doctor!”

What was going on here? Blood and spit ran down Sophie’s chin, confusing the hell out of me. Her eyes were bright with some kind of emotion I couldn’t read. Something was off with this situation in a big way. Blood doesn’t just shoot out of people.

“I’m tho thorry,” she mumbled. “I bith my tongue and ith thcared me.”

I looked down at my arm again, which was covered with red spray. Just what I needed.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” I muttered. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? Shit, you got any diseases?”

“No, I don’t hath any ditheatheth,” Sophie mumbled, her tongue getting in the way. Then she seemed to bite it again. “Owth!”

Good. I hoped the damned thing fell off.

“Drive me fuckin’ crazy. I’ll get you a piece of ice to suck on. Jesus, that’s fucking disgusting.”

I left the room, slamming the door behind me.

What next?

Five minutes later, I scrubbed the blood and spit off my arm while frowning at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sophie and Em were up to something. I wasn’t sure what. Not that it really mattered … It was pretty clear to me by now that I was looking at a complete clusterfuck.

I’d broken Em, or at least I’d tried to. I’d terrorized Sophie, who hadn’t done shit to deserve it. We weren’t any closer to getting Clutch back, and Burke was fucked when it came to the election if we didn’t put a lid on things.

In a few minutes I’d be calling Picnic Hayes. I wasn’t sure if I’d be meeting with him to talk business or facing my own execution.

Good times.

I walked down to the kitchen and dug through the freezer, finding an ice cube. Then I wrapped it in a napkin and took it back upstairs, along with a disposable cell phone. I handed Sophie the ice, which she popped into her mouth.

“We’re going to call your dad again,” I told Em. “I’ll let you talk to him for a minute, then I’ll see where the situation’s headed.”

“What about Sophie?” she demanded. “Ruger will want to talk to her.”

“Ruger can fuck himself,” I said impatiently.

“Pleathe?” Sophie whined, reddish drool sliding down her chin, making her look like a zombie. I don’t think she could’ve looked more disgusting and pathetic if she’d had a full Hollywood makeup team. “My boy—Noah—he’th got a prethcription he needth. Ruger doethn’t know where it ith. Let me talk to him for two minuteth. Pleathe.”

I studied her, then took a quick look at Em. Both seemed way too eager.

“You’re full of shit,” I said.

“You want a seven-year-old kid to die?” Em asked, glaring at me. “Not enough to kill two women, now you’re gonna take out a little boy, too? You’re a hell of a man, Liam.”

Jesus Christ. Take a few pictures of the girl naked and covered in fresh come, and she went full bitch.

“Do you never shut up?” I asked. Fucking woman was determined to drive me insane. Still, I considered the request … It probably didn’t matter. Let Sophie call Ruger—maybe it’d quiet her down. If it gave me two minutes of blood-free peace, that’d be worth the cost of admission right there.

I popped open the phone and hit the number, setting it on speaker. We listened as it rang, and then Ruger answered.

“Yeah?” he asked, his voice tight.

“It’s Thophie,” Sophie said, her swollen tongue twisting the words. “I’m here with Hunter and Em, they’re lithening.”

I snapped the phone shut, annoyed. Should I really be surprised she’d try and warn him I was here? Probably not, but I wouldn’t let her get away with it, either.

“No fucking games,” I growled. “You’re done.”

Sophie nodded and put the ice back in her mouth. So much for her desperate need to talk to Ruger about medicine for the kid. There was a lot more going on here than I could follow.

Bullshit all the way.

I glanced over at Em, who was still glaring at me. So far as I could tell, she only had the one expression at this point. I don’t know why it bothered me so much. I wanted her to hate me, right?

“Calling your dad now,” I told her. “Be a good girl, Emmy Lou—or did you need another lesson?”

She flinched and looked away. I smirked at her cruelly, hating myself because I wanted a smile from her so bad. The phone started ringing, and then Hayes’s voice came through the speaker.

“Picnic.”

“Hey, Daddy,” Em said. “We’re okay for now.”

She glanced up at me, an unspoken question in her eyes—would they stay okay?

“What the fuck’s wrong with Sophie?” Picnic asked. “Ruger says she wasn’t talking right.”

“She bit her tongue,” Em said. “Don’t worry, she’s fine. But you need to get us out of here.”

“We know, baby,” he said, his voice softening. “We’re working on it.”

Very touching.

This guy was definitely gonna kill me. I know I would, in his place. Maybe I should’ve screwed her after all, I thought wryly. If I was going to die over a woman, would be nice to actually collect … I studied Em, whose eyes were suspiciously moist.

Well, fuck.

“That’s enough, girls,” I said, pulling away the phone. I turned and walked out of the room, putting it to my ear.

“Hayes,” I said. “We need to talk.”

“We’re talking,” he said, although I heard restrained fury in his voice.

“Em says you don’t know where this Toke asshole has gone,” I said. “Says he’s on his own. That true? You can’t control your own men, now?”

“It’s complicated,” he replied. “But that’s the essence of it.”

“I don’t buy it. I know Em thinks that’s the case, but sounds like Reaper games to me. You using your own daughter to play me?”

Picnic sighed.

“I wish to hell I had that much control over the situation. We voted to pull Toke’s patch before he grabbed your boy. He’s out bad.”

Shit … Every instinct I had said he was telling the truth.

“I want to save this truce,” I said slowly. “I think you do, too. But that can’t happen until we have our guy back. And it needs to happen today.”

“I want those girls back. Safe. They got fuck-all to do with this.”

“We got ourselves a hell of a problem here,” I muttered. “I want to meet, talk it out in person. You convince me you’re telling the truth, give me something to take to my club. Maybe there’s still a way out of this. The girls’ll stay with my brother—they’re my safe passage.”

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Spirit Lake,” I told him. “Two this afternoon. And Hayes? You touch me, Sophie and Em are dead. In fact, you better hope I drive careful, because unless Skid sees me in one piece at the end of this, he’ll take it out on them. He’s a mean bastard, doesn’t give a shit that they’re women.”