They’d planned for that.

It wouldn’t have made a difference.

There had been no clock in the gas station, or I know I would’ve noticed it.

My throat started burning.

They really were prepared for me.

“How many girls do you kidnap?” I yelled to Tanner.

He glanced to me before rounding the back of the SUV. I could see him through the windows.

I snorted as a guard opened the door for me. “Is it a regular thing? Monthly? Bimonthly? Every week? Every few days?”

I didn’t expect a response as I got inside, but I was expecting Tanner to get in with me. I was going to keep taunting—another small point of resistance, the only thing I had going for me at this point.

But he didn’t get in.

His door closed abruptly, and so did mine. My leg had barely cleared the door before it slammed shut, then locked.

I looked around in alarm. I was the only one in the SUV, but they’d locked me in.

“Hey!” I banged on the window. My voice was probably muffled, but they could hear me. Or so I assumed. “Hey!”

No one looked.

Tanner had disappeared from his side.

A complete wall of guards came around my SUV, blocking everything except the little I could see through the gaps between their necks and heads. I moved around, trying to get a better look at what was going on.

I could see Tanner walking toward an empty section of the parking lot. Four guards trailed him, but stood a respectable distance back.

Something was coming.

Someone was coming.

And we didn’t have to wait long.

Three SUVs sped down the highway and turned into the parking lot, parking in front of Tanner with a swirl of dust.

I half expected all the doors to open and guards to emerge, since those looked like the same SUVs as we were traveling with. But they didn’t. The only door that opened was the back door of the second SUV.

Kai Bennett had arrived.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I hissed to myself as my blood boiled and froze all at once.

He’d only become more since I last saw him.

Taller. More good looking. More riveting. More dangerous. More, more, more. And I hated it. That had become more too.

I loathed him now.

There was no comparison between Kai and Tanner. Tanner had been the womanizer, the flirt back then, and besides the smirking asshole he was for kidnapping me, there were plenty of hints that he was still those things now.

But as I looked at the brothers standing across from each other, power dripped from Kai Bennett. Authority emanated from him, even just standing there.

Every single guard stood an inch taller.

The tension in the air went up a notch, and I felt it even inside the vehicle. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps ran down my arms.

Sunglasses blocked his eyes as he listened to what Tanner was saying, but his eyes flashed in my memory—how dead they’d looked when he told me to leave Brooke alone, right after their father had told her Cord was dead.

I felt sick to my stomach, and my hand moved there, as if to keep the contents in.

No one else made my skin crawl with disgust except my father. Kai Bennett and Bruce Bello were cut from the same cloth.

I should have looked away, if only just to keep from emptying my stomach, but I couldn’t.

My heart picked up. I felt it pounding in my eardrums, and I tasted bile in my mouth. But still, I couldn’t look away. Resting a hand on the window, I scooted even closer.

I needed to try to read their lips—beep.

No. They couldn’t.

I heard another beep, coming from the front of the car.

Crawling forward, I heard a third beep. A phone had been left up there. There was a wall and a small window separating the front from the back, but I could get through that window. Feeling it, it moved an inch.

They hadn’t locked it, but I could see why. It took all of my muscles to get it open that one inch. A fourth beep sent my blood rushing through my body. Adrenaline and excitement filled me with almost a frenzied need to get to that phone.

I used my entire body to get the window open farther.

One more inch.

Goddamn, a fifth beep.

The phone was in the console, right underneath my fingers.

I tried again, almost throwing myself backward to get it open a bit more. I didn’t want to rock the vehicle, make them aware of what was I doing, but it worked.

Shit.

I felt the SUV tremble, and I paused, glancing over my shoulder.

The guards remained with their backs to the SUV. The two Bennetts were still talking, neither looking my way. I was safe, for now.

The window had opened another two inches, more than enough to get my arm inside. Snaking it through, with my face pressed against the window, I reached down to the console.

I grabbed the phone, my fingers just grazing it. I cupped it and pulled my arm back through the window.

My pulse jackhammered inside me.

I was shaking, almost uncontrollably, but as I opened the screen, I nearly wept. No passcode needed. I dialed in a safe number to call.

A second later, I heard, “411. What is your information?”

Tears wet my face. “This is Section 8, Hider 96. My location is at these coordinates.”

There was silence on the other end. They were listening.

“I’ve been kidnapped by the Bennett family.”