My head is killing me.

I don’t want to open my eyes and acknowledge the pain.

I just want to float back into oblivion. Things don’t hurt in that black abyss. They’re not scary either.

Squinting my eyes, I creep them open and the fear that pummeled me seconds before I blacked out returns full force.

My breath hitches as I take in my surroundings. Things are still kind of blurry and blinding as my eyes struggle to focus.

Something is hurting my mouth. I wriggle my jaw and figure out that I’m gagged.

My head hurts. I reach up to investigate what feels like a lump on my forehead but my hands are tied behind my back.

I gasp and wrestle against the hard plastic tie, but that only causes more pain.

Letting out a soft whimper, I wriggle on the hard wooden floor, trying to get my bearings.

I remember Milo Carter and Luisa Garcia kissing. I saw them.

And then I dropped my phone.

I ran.

He caught me.

And then I can’t remember.

I must have fallen and hit my head.

Forcing a breath through my nose, I will my erratic heart to calm the hell down.

I need to figure out where I am.

Using the wall behind me, I nudge myself up to a sitting position. My body is aching from spending the night on the floor. Blurry dark images flash through my mind.

My limp body bobbed up and down as someone carried me over his shoulder.

I was placed on the floor and then I drifted away again.

I rotate my wrists in an effort to ease the cutting plastic, but it only makes my skin hurt more. My shoulders hurt from being forced into this position for too long.

A band of pain is wrapped around my head, but my vision has started to clear.

I can make out the room now. Light is streaming in from a skylight above me. It must be morning.

Shit. I have to get out of here.

Rahn will be crazy with worry. And then my parents are going to find out what I did.

I want my dad.

I want Vincent.

Sniffing at my self-pity, I try to focus back on the things I can control…like figuring out where I am.

The club. I caught the bus to the club last night.

I went out back. I saw what I saw.

And they’ve taken me somewhere.

I scan the sparsely furnished room. There’s a black leather couch in the corner with a glass coffee table in front. Closets line the wall in front of me, and the only other thing of note are the empty coffee mugs on the table.

Did they sit here watching me while I was passed out? Sipping on their freaking coffees?

I close my eyes to ward off the creepy chills climbing my spine.

I feel sick.

Tears threaten to blur my vision, but I quickly blink them away. I need to think. I need to get to a phone and call for help.

I might not know where I am, but I can tell them where I was.

Pushing my back against the wall, I inch my way up like a caterpillar until I’m on my feet. My ankles are tied so I’m going to have to jump to the door. I’ll try not to make too much noise.

Pulling in a breath, I steady myself and make a little leap forward, but as soon as I land my world tips sideways and I’m crashing to the floor. I manage to stick out my elbow and stop my head from hitting the wood, but pain radiates up my arm.

I groan and roll onto my back, which hurts so I push over onto my side again and go still when I hear voices outside the door.

“Well, we have to think of something! We can’t just leave her here!” a woman snaps.

It must be Luisa.

“I’m not killing her.”

“Milo, she has to go. She’s seen too much.”

“Can’t we just pay her off…or scare her into silence?”

“Because it worked so well last time?” Luisa’s voice pitches. “That turned into a complete mess.”

“Only because you pulled the trigger.”

“We knew that might be a possibility, that’s why we covered ourselves. He was asking too much, and I didn’t trust him not to take our money and then publish the story anyway! You’ve seen the photos. They’d destroy us. Your career would be down the toilet, not to mention the fact that my husband will kill me if he knows what I’ve been doing with you. We killed McCrae for our own safety, and we got away with it.”

“It’s not going to work like that this time!” Milo argues. “I can’t kill Barlow’s daughter. He’s nothing like Tannon. He will not stop looking until he finds her killer, and he will dig for all the right evidence. He’ll bring in support from the FBI if he has to. That guy cannot be stopped. He can’t be scared off or paid off.”

“You never should have offered him that job,” she clips. “I told you it was a mistake.”

“Yeah, well, he seemed kind of power hungry, hating his current job. You know the council was putting pressure on me to find someone new. We needed stability after the murder and I wanted to be the guy to supply it. The election’s coming up soon and I need to look good. I thought he’d be easy enough to manipulate. I did him a favor, he owed me one. But he’s turning out to be way more by the book than I expected. He wasn’t like that in college, I swear.” Mayor Carter huffs. “The point is, we can’t kill his kid.”

“So what the hell are we supposed to do?” Luisa sighs and rubs her forehead—I can tell by the way her shadow is moving.

Suddenly the door bursts open.

I shut my eyes, relaxing my body so it looks like I’m sleeping.

I’m woken by a sharp shake to the shoulder. I gasp, my eyes pinging open.

Milo gazes down at me, his expression unreadable.

He’s not glaring. He doesn’t look angry or scared.

In fact, his lips actually curl into a smile.

“Morning,” he greets me softly.

I frown at him.

“Sorry about last night. You fell and bumped your head. I tried to catch you.”

My eyes narrow into a glare so he knows I think he’s a big fat liar.

He pastes on a politician’s smile and helps me sit up. With one swift move, he swoops me into his arms and plops me onto the leather couch.

“You comfortable?”

I give him an incredulous look, which makes him shuffle in his seat and run his fingers over his bottom lip. His movements are twitchy and nervous.

“Chloe, I’m going to take the gag off your mouth. If you scream, I will have to hurt you. Do you understand?”

Fear tries to cut off my air supply and all I can manage is a stiff nod.

Easing the gag down my chin, he lets it rest around my neck while I open and close my mouth a few times.

Sharp steps pull my attention to the door. Luisa is outside. I can tell by the staccato rhythm that she’s pacing.

“Tell me what you remember about last night.” Mayor Carter’s voice is soft and easy.

I sniff, trying to figure out what to say. I don’t know where he’s going with this and I’m not sure if it’s safer to lie or tell the truth.

His hand lands on my knee, his large fingers enveloping my leg. I flinch beneath his touch, but he grips a little tighter, flashing me a desperate look—do as I say, dammit! When I still don’t respond, his brow flickers with annoyance and he squeezes until pain is shooting both up my thigh and down my shin. “You need to tell me the truth. It’s important I know what you remember.”

I cry out beneath his grasp and the truth tumbles from me before I can stop it.

“I saw you kissing.” My voice is strangled by my discomfort. “You’re having an affair with Luisa Garcia!”

“Okay.” Mayor Carter eases his grip but keeps his hand in place. “I’m sure you can understand how highly sensitive that information is. If we let you go back out into the world with this knowledge, would we be able to trust you to keep it to yourself?”

Really? He’s trying this?

His cool gaze lands on me, demanding simple compliance.

But what will that mean?

Freedom for a second, but then I’ll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, because there is no way a man like this is going to let me walk away with the kind of knowledge I have and not keep an eye on me every step of the way.

It also means that these two will get away with Todd McCrae’s murder while an innocent man does their time in jail.

I can’t live with that.

Nick’s innocent. He deserves freedom. Vincent deserves his brother back!

But if I say no, what’s going to happen to me?

“I’m sure I can think of some really good incentives to keep you quiet.”

“I can’t be bought,” I rasp, glancing at his hand on my knee and hoping it won’t hurt me again.

Mayor Carter huffs, rubbing his sweating forehead with shaky fingers. “So you’d prefer to be threatened, then? Okay, well, I’m sure I can think of numerous ways to destroy your family’s life.”

“You can’t threaten me either,” I interject before he starts listing them. “If you want me silent, then you’ll have to kill me, and good luck with the wrath my father will rain down on you when he finds out what you’ve done. You two are murdering liars and I will do nothing to help you keep your secrets. You deserve to rot in jail and Nick Mancini deserves to walk free.”

I don’t know how my voice has so much strength right now. Maybe it’s just pure conviction. The fire raging inside of me will not be contained, and as much as it will hurt my family to lose me, I’m not staying silent.

If my death can bring these two killers to justice then so be it.

Yes, I’m terrified.

But I’m also one hundred percent justified.

Mayor Carter’s lips bunch into a tight line, breaths spurting out his nose. “You are a fool.” His voice trembles. “Do you understand what you’re making me do?”

“I’m not making you do anything. Give it up now. Return me and serve your time. That’s your easiest way out of this. Everything else is going to either eat you alive or get you killed.”

His eyes flash with warning, but I’m on a roll so I lay down one more card before he can shut me up.

“You know you can’t get away with this. You can’t lie forever. The truth will come out one way or another. Do you honestly want to be convicted for killing an innocent teenage girl? How are you supposed to hide it? How are you—”

With a growl, he yanks my gag back into place before giving me a hard shove. I flop back against the couch, my already tender head aching as it hits the leather.

Storming to the door, Mayor Carter spins and points at me. “Making me kill you is a stupid move!” His panic-laced voice reverberates throughout the room. “I didn’t go down last time and I won’t go down again!”

He slams the door so hard the walls vibrate.

The strength that’s been holding me together suddenly disappears. Fear tries to cut off my air supply as I wrestle against the gag and my constraints.

I’m going to die.

I just signed my own freaking death warrant.

And yes, it’s for a very good cause, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t really want to stop living today. My death is going to hurt the people I love.

I need to get out of here.

I need to get back to them.