Broken Empire (Boys of Oak Park Prep 3)

Memories returned in a rush, and my entire body tensed as if I’d been thrown into ice-cold water.

“I’m not saying we don’t need to deal with it, but is abducting her in the middle of the fucking day really the solution here? Jesus, you’re going to make everything worse.”

I didn’t recognize that voice, but when I pried my sticky eyelids open and tilted my head slightly, I knew the man immediately.

Edward Van Buren.

Mason’s dad.

“You already botched this once,” a third voice drawled. “And then we agreed to leave her alone.”

“Because you thought she didn’t know anything, and you didn’t want to risk drawing attention. But did you or did you not hear me say, she knows? She knows too much, and she was texting my goddamn son about it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mr. Van Buren muttered, and for a second, he sounded so much like his son that my stomach turned over. “Well, how do we know she hasn’t told anyone else?”

“Because she trusts Cole.” Disgust sat heavy in Mr. Mercer’s voice. “She told him she’d just found out. Something about a lawyer being sent from my household, goddammit. And something about Adam. I invited her over and deleted the messages, then sent Cole out with Penny. I’m telling you, if we stop this here, it ends. Everything’s fine.”

“Where’s Whittaker?” the third voice asked.

“He refused to come, the goddamn pussy. Fuck!”

There was a clatter that seemed to echo, as if we were in a large space and someone had knocked over a piece of furniture or something. I cracked my eyes open again, doing my best to keep the rest of my body still and limp, even though I could feel all my muscles bunching up tight with fear.

We were in something like a storage building. It was big and mostly empty—run-down and dirty, as if it hadn’t been used in a while. Fluorescent lights ran along the ceiling, and there were no windows that I could see, so I had no idea if it was light out or not. It’d been mid-afternoon when Mr. Mercer had attacked me outside his house, but I wasn’t sure if minutes or hours or days had passed since then.

Not days. Can’t be days.

I would be hungrier, thirstier, and weaker if that were true.

Besides, why would they keep me here for days when this wasn’t that kind of kidnapping? Not one where they would hold me for ransom and give me back if my family paid up.

From the way Mr. Mercer was talking, that wasn’t why they’d brought me here at all.

They’d brought me here to kill me.

The other two men had stopped talking at Mr. Mercer’s explosion. They watched him silently now, as if waiting for him to regain control of himself again. He paced back and forth a few times, running a hand through his dark hair, and when he glanced back toward me, I snapped my eyes shut before he could see me staring, trying to hide the sudden hitch in my breath.

No one spoke, and he moved as silently as he had when he’d come after me in his driveway, but I felt the fucking atmosphere change as he approached. My skin prickled as if spiders were crawling up and down my arms, and I held as still as I could—

Until a large hand grabbed my chin, forcing it up.

“I know you’re awake, sweetheart. Have a nice nap?”

His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath ghosting over my skin, and I forced my eyes open, forced myself to meet his ga

ze. I was tied to a chair, my hands bound behind me with what felt like duct tape, and more tape wrapped around my chest, pinning me to the rickety metal folding chair. There was nowhere to go when he leaned in even closer, his blue eyes narrowing.

“What do you know about Adam Pierce?”

“He’s my… dad…”

The words slurred out of my mouth, and I felt a little like Adena must’ve on prom night. I was still woozy and disoriented, and the truth had come out before I’d had a chance to clamp my lips around it.

Or at least, what I thought was the truth.

Mr. Mercer made a face, shaking his head in what almost looked like disbelief. “Fucking Hildebrands. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time. You couldn’t just let it go? Couldn’t just leave well enough alone, could you?”

“For God’s sake, Richard. Stop talking to her,” the third voice said. It was smooth and aristocratic, and although I barely remembered the sound of it from the one time we’d met, I was positive it belonged to Elijah’s father. Charles Prescott.