I lurched forward, grabbed the pen, and stabbed Perrone in the neck, right where his veins pumped corrupted, evil blood to his brain. He jerked over the desk, fingers clawing at the pen, and pulled it out amidst a gush of blood.

Red…that’s all I saw as I wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed with every bit of strength I possessed. Letting the fucker bleed out wasn’t enough. Jax shouted something, but I couldn’t hear shit beyond the roar in my head.

Perrone struggled for a few intense seconds, a blip in the grand scheme of things, before he slumped over the smooth surface of the desk, gone to the world.

Dead.

Unable to hurt anyone else.

“You killed him.” Jax grasped his blond hair and stared at me, mouth gaping.

I stepped back and lifted my blood-drenched hands. The sticky red bathed my arms and shirt. Outwardly, I was the picture of calm, as if I’d taken a life without a second thought, but on the inside, I cowered in a corner and silently screamed.

Heartbeat racing way too fucking fast, I pulled out the throwaway phone we’d bought on the way to Portland. A tremor seized my fingers, and I had to punch in the sheriff’s number twice before it went through.

He answered on the third ring with a barked, “Lewis.”

“You’ll find Nikki Malone’s remains somewhere in Forrest Park. You’ll need—”

“Who is this?” he shouted through the earpiece.

“Shut up and listen.” The plan relied heavily on chance and Lyle Lewis actually acting on an anonymous tip. “You’ll need several men, probably a few ATVs. There’s an underground tunnel being used for sex trafficking.” I relayed the general whereabouts of the entrance, though Jax and I had a hard time pinpointing the area on a map, which made explaining it over the phone next to impossible. If they didn’t show, or if they did but couldn’t find the right spot…

He began interrogating me, so I ended the call, and that’s when the shaking started, the rush of heat flushing my skin. My stomach revolted, and my knees buckled.

Jax blinked, hands still clutching his hair as he stared in horror at his father. He blinked again, shook his head, and closed the distance between us. “C’mon. We gotta move.”

He had to drag me down to that slab of a room, because I’d checked out. Whispers of the past taunted the edges of my sanity, and the mustiness of the basement incited flashes of my cellar on the island.

Alex. God, I could see her so clearly, her body shivering next to me, skin damp as I fisted her stringy hair in a tight grip. The clank of a lock. Her desperate pleas for me not to leave her in that cage.

Jax picked up a gas can and held it out to me.