Hell Breaks Loose: A Devil's Rock Novel by Sophie Jordan

done.
     Tying up your loose strings.” That jab hit the mark.
    He jerked his head toward Grace, waiting on the porch. “Get me in with Sullivan.” He looked back and forth between Rowdy and
     his brother, hoping he conveyed his seriousness—a seriousness that would be expressed to Sullivan.
    He needed that meeting. He needed to get face-to-face with the man. After that, he didn’t care what happened. It would be
     over. It would finally be over after all these years.
    Reid stepped out onto the porch and his brother followed.
    “No worries,” Zane said. “We’ll have you back on top like you used to be.” At the edge of the porch, his brother clapped him
     on the back. “It’s good to have you with us again. I know it didn’t end well . . .” His voice faded and he looked decidedly
     uncomfortable. Yeah, talking about how Sullivan fucked him over wasn’t an easy topic, especially considering Zane now worked
     for the asshole like none of that mattered.
    “Yeah. It didn’t end well.” Reid nodded and tried to keep the bite out of his voice. He had to appear different. Like one
     of them. “I went to prison.”
    “Well, this was how it was supposed to be.” Zane forced a smile and clarified, “How it was always meant to be.”
    Reid only hoped Sullivan felt the same way and forgot how pissed off he’d been when he went to prison. At his sentence hearing,
     he might have flipped a table, cursed Sullivan and accused the judge of being in his pocket. Hopefully, Sullivan thought he
     had put that anger behind him for good and would see him.
    His brother gave him a quick hug, hanging on just a little too long. Pulling back, he motioned to the yard. “Keys in the ignition.
     I put some things in the back for you, too. Place should have some canned food, a few jugs of water and dried goods, but I
     filled an ice chest up with things you might need.”
    “Thanks,” he said.
    Reid descended the porch. Grace stayed one step ahead of him. She looked smaller somehow on the outside. He hastened until
     they were walking abreast of each other. He sent her a quick glance. She looked up at him with that damned cord around her
     neck, a faint quiver in her lip.
    “Sorry ’bout that,” he said as he they advanced to the vehicle. Sorry about abducting you. Terrifying you. Feeling you up.
    She shook her head and shot a glance over her shoulder as if verifying it was okay to talk now. He followed her gaze. The
     porch was empty. Zane had gone back inside. ’Course, that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched from the window.
    He guided her to the waiting van, some relic from the nineties that smacked of “I have a kidnapped woman in the back. ”It
     would have to do. The thing that most worked to his benefit was that Grace had been taken several hundred miles east of her
     abduction site. And they were only going farther west. While the state was on an overall high alert, no one had seen the van.
     No one was specifically looking for this vehicle in relationship to Grace Reeves or him. Especially not way out in the badlands of Texas.
    He yanked open the back doors, satisfied to at least see a blanket spread out on the hard metal floor.
    “I can’t believe they are letting me go like this,” she whispered beside him, as though still afraid they could hear her.
     “I’m actually getting out of here.”
    His chest tightened. He knew what she thought. Maybe he had let her think that by promising to keep her safe. She believed
     she was going home right now. He could tell her, explain it to her, but that would just be borrowing trouble before he needed
     to. It could wait.
    He reached for her throat. Loosening the cord, he ignored the softness of her skin and nodded toward her wrists. “You can
     take those off once we get on our way. Climb in.” Right now they needed to put this place behind them.
    With a grateful look at him, she turned and clambered up into the back of the van. There was that guilty feeling