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Charlie saw the glow of the streetlights when he opened his eyes again. He’d dosed off, he thought.
The man on the floor in front of him was sniveling. Charlie had listened to Lou talking to the other man before he’d passed out. The things Lou had said the other man had done. It sickened him. The man was getting exactly what he deserved—if Lou was telling the truth.
Charlie didn’t have the energy to even ask. He coughed again.
Blood covered his hand when he pulled it away.
Charlie looked out the window as Lou drove down a residential street. Then up and down another. Charlie didn’t have the strength to consider why.
Lou was ranting at his captive. Charlie wasn’t certain if he wasn’t a captive of the madman, too.
What Bailey would have felt back in April ran through his head. The pain. The fear. All of Charlie’s sins kept running through his head, over and over again.
Ticking off in a mental checkbox one by one, culminating with Celia and Kyra. And Bailey.
“Lou! You got to let me go somewhere.”
Lou swore and looked at him.
They both knew the truth.
“Take me to my girl, Lou. Just do that one thing to me.”
He had things he needed to say to Celia. And he wanted to make sure he had time to say them. “Just...take me to her.”
He’d tell her the truth, that he’d just been greedy and stupid and lazy. And drunk. Hell, the entire time he’d been concocting his plan, he’d been throwing back tequila after a woman he’d loved had walked out on him—because he didn’t have the money to offer her all she’d thought she’d deserved.
That damned treasure had been the balm to his ego at first.
Then it had been the price of his soul.
Now it was going to cost him everything.