A cold shiver travels down my spine.
He wants to kill me and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Trent looks between Dickers and me. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly that,” Dickers snaps. “We don’t know if it worked because you’re making a lot of fucking assumptions.”
“Assumptions about what?” Trent snaps back, keeping his grip firmly on my arm.
My skin crawls beneath his touch, and I want to yank away from him. I want to yell at him to get his fucking hand off me. He doesn’t have a right to touch me. I’m not his.
But I’m not stupid.
I’m trapped in a car full of men who may or may not want to kill me. Two of them, at least, have already had a part in killing my father.
It makes me sick. But with the way Dickers is already looking at me like he’d rather stomp me under his boot like a bug than see me breathing, I know Trent may be my only chance of making it out of this in one piece.
For now, I have to play nice with him and use him to get out of this. Use him to find a way to help James.
Fuck… James…
“You’re assuming she’s—” Dickers starts to say before Trent cuts him off.
“Sophia, are you okay?” Trent asks, his brow pinched with concern as he takes in the tears in my eyes and the sad, crumbled expression on my face.
I shake my head and let my tears fall freely.
“I don’t know what’s going on…” I sniffle, not even needing to play it up.
My emotion, my sadness is very real. But not because of what’s happening to me. I’m fucking terrified for James. I’m terrified that he’s going to be hurt or worse…
I might lose him too.
Lose the little family we’ve been building with him, me, Fluffers, and Mitzy.
If that happens… if he leaves me…
I think it will be the final nail in my coffin. I will truly have no reason to live or go on.
Letting go of my hand, Trent reaches for my face, like he wants to brush my tears away, but I flinch away from him.
“We’re rescuing you,” he frowns at me.
Dickers snorts. “Rescuing, yeah. I guess that’s what we’re calling it.”
Trent whips his head in Dickers’s direction, opening his mouth to tell him off some more.
But a new voice cuts in from up front.
“That’s enough,” Jacob, Trent’s father, says firmly, trying to take control of the situation. “We can argue about these things later. Right now, we still have a mission to accomplish.”
Hearing Jacob Morrison’s voice… My father’s best friend. The man he trusted the most in this world, who ultimately stabbed him in the back, turns my entire body cold.
I want to launch myself forward. I want to wrap my hands around his throat and choke the life out of him. I want to scream in his face and demand why.
Why did he turn on my father?
Was his friendship all a lie? A scheme?
All those years… was he merely keeping his enemy close?
But I can’t because I still have my hands zip-tied behind me, and it might get me killed.
So I bite the inside of my cheek and dig my nails into my palms to keep some of the rage and hatred at bay.
When Trent looks at me strangely, like he doesn’t understand the new expression on my face, I say, “My arms and wrists hurt. Can you take the cuffs off?”
Trent nods. “Of course.”
Then he reaches down to his belt to grab a utility knife.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Dickers warns.
Trent’s face turns bright red with his own anger as he yanks the knife out and works to open it one-handed. “Fuck you, don’t tell me what to do! You’re not my fucking TO anymore, so stop trying to boss me around like a bitch!”
He’s probably going to cut the cuffs off me out of sheer spite.
“If you’d stop acting like a little pussy-whipped bitch, I wouldn’t have to treat you like a pussy-whipped bitch!” Dickers yells back.
“I’m not a fucking pussy-whipped bitch!” Trent snarls then he glares down at the knife, unable to get it open with just one hand.
Looking between the both of them and the hatred they’re showing for each other, I start to hope that they’ll kill each other and save me the trouble.
“You being a pussy-whipped bitch is what got us in this mess!” Dickers yells some more then pounds his hands on the steering wheel. “You’ve fucking ruined all of our lives! For pussy! Pussy you haven’t even hit!”
“Don’t you fucking talk about her like that!” Trent yells right back, so angry, the veins on his neck are bulging and spit is flying out of his mouth. “Take it back!”
“Dickers,” Jacob says calmly, and it’s jarring compared to the two raging men.