The door whips open, and Callum is there in jeans and a hoodie, dark figures looming behind him.

He sticks his head inside, his eyes gleaming with delight when he sees her nearly naked body in my arms.

“Well, what do we have here?” He sneers.

“What the hell do you want?” Liv growls, shooting out her leg to kick him back, but he grabs her foot instead.

Milo bends down, peering inside the car. “Goddamn.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” someone shouts, and I realize it’s the driver.

“Help!” I shout.

But Callum yanks Liv, and she screams. “No!”

I lunge, slamming my fists and trying to hit anything I can—his head, his arms, anything to loosen his hold.

But he has her. He sweeps her out of the car and away from me.

“No!” I cry.

“Ahhh!” Liv yells.

“Time to pay your dues, bitch!” Callum spits out and throws her over his shoulder.

I go after her, but the door slams in my face. I pull the handle, slamming my body against the door, but I can see Milo leaning into it through the broken window.

“Livvy!” I scream.

“No!” I hear her muffled cry.

Finally, the door gives away, and I bolt through it, falling onto the road. I climb to my feet and spin around, seeing Callum’s car and Milo running to the passenger side.

I run as they climb into the car, but Callum hits the gas, speeding in reverse and whipping the car around in a one-eighty, speeding off down Main Street.

“Liv!” Two other cars follow, the rest of their crew, but I don’t know who it is. I didn’t catch any other faces.

“I’m calling the police!” the driver exclaims.

But I shake my head. The police won’t know where to find them, and even if they did, they’ll show up before Liv’s brothers can fuck Callum and Milo up. I don’t want them in our way.

I pull out my phone and Google Jaeger’s Lawn Service. A moment later, one of them picks up.

“Trace…” I cry.

I BREATHE HARD, sucking my hair into my mouth as he presses my face into the seat.

Someone else pins my hands behind my back, securing them with some kind of cloth, and then I’m hauled up and into Callum’s lap as Delaney Cooper, who graduated last year and attends Vanderbilt now, drives. Wanna bet Callum’s trying to impress his future frat brother?

I glare at Callum, seeing pure satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. I growl, slamming my forehead into his nose.

Motherfucker!

He winces, howling, and I try to see out the window behind us, but Clay is out of sight.

If he hurt her…

His grip eases, and he holds his nose with one hand, a trickle of blood spilling down. “Goddammit!” he spits out.

I flail and whip, and while I know full-well I won’t escape, maybe if I’m enough trouble, he’ll toss me from the car. Does he have any idea what’s going to happen to him if he hurts me? Does he care?

He wraps his arm around me and then grabs my neck, squeezing it.

A groan escapes as he cuts off my oxygen. “You sure you want to do this?”

“This was always how it was going to go,” he whispers. “Especially since I know you weren’t going to come tomorrow night anyway. You gave Macon the key, didn’t you? To break into Fox Hill? To trash the painting? To crash our party tomorrow night and fuck us up?”

So he decided to surprise me a day early.

Well, he’s only partially correct. There wasn’t going to be any fight, and my brothers were never going to make an appearance. They did a lot more than Callum thinks they did that night when they burned the painting.

But this changes things. He stole me off the street. Out of a car. Macon won’t let this go. He can hold his temper for a lot, but not this. And while Callum will get exactly what’s coming to him, the police won’t get lazy when a founding son goes missing. My family won’t get away with anything for long.

Please Clay, don’t call them. Please.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Shit.

I twist, screaming and thrashing as I try to reach for the door with my hands to throw myself out of the car if I get a chance to, but Delaney presses the gas, speeding up, and Callum digs his nails into my neck. “Stop,” he grits out. “Or we’ll go back and get Clay for this too.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask. “She saw you. She saw your faces.” I look around at Milo, Delaney, and the other guy in the passenger seat I don’t recognize. “She’s calling the police by now.”

“You think so?” he taunts. “What will the police do to me?”

I close my mouth, staring at him.

“I think she called your brothers instead, don’t you think?”

My heart sinks a little. Her instinct would’ve been to get me back and to make Callum Ames pay. She wouldn’t have trusted the police, given who his father is.

And he knows that. He knows exactly what’s coming.

“That’s what you want,” I say quietly. “You’re drawing them in. You want his attention.”

He falls silent, but his eyes never leave mine. I always knew this wasn’t about me. I just underestimated how far he would go.

“Unless you told them about the night we planned, then no one will know where to find you, so no…,” he says. “I don’t expect your brothers to actually show up. It’s just us. I’m sure they’ll find me in the days to come, though. After we’re done.”

Oh, God. I swallow down the vomit.

Would Clay know where they’re taking me? She said she wasn’t aware of any clubhouses.

No one is coming for me. My phone is somewhere in the limo, so no one can track me, and there are four of them. Panic seizes me. Shit.

We race onto the highway, speeding down the dark lane, and Del dips off to the left suddenly, taking the long, smoothly paved road up to Fox Hill.

The oaks on both sides provide a canopy from the moon and stars, and I can only make out the sheen in Callum’s eyes as I stare at him and he stares back at me. Darkness consumes us, and he knows what’s about to happen as well as I do.

I feel a sting on my neck and know his nail has cut my skin. “You will never come back from this,” I murmur.

“I’m not worried about me.”

“You should be,” I say. “This is gonna hurt.”

No one is really evil. And not many are crazy or sick.

He’s angry. He won’t always feel like this. Is he sure this is a road he wants to cross?

His eyes narrow, and I can tell he’s thinking about it. Can he still let me go? Or has he gone too far and might as well finish?

Reaching behind me slowly, I slip off the gold strappy heels I put Clay in a month ago. I won’t be able to run in them.

Del slams on the brakes, and the SUV screeches to a halt. I dart my gaze out of the window, seeing we’re on the golf course, around the back of the field house. Aracely used to work the beer cart on the course, and I had to pick her up one time.

The doors open, the scent of wood, grass, and sweat hitting me as someone grabs me and pulls me out of the cab. Delaney spins me around and looks down at me as Callum tightens the band around my wrists. A smile lights up Del’s eyes, and I’m not sure this guy has ever looked me in the eye, or knew I existed when he was at Marymount, but he sure knows now.