Page 17 of Between Control and Chaos
I’ll always choose Harper first.
“His dead body makes little difference to me. You, on the other hand, bringing you in alive brings me a sweet deal.”
I glance at Ashton, unpleased with this little bit of information from Nico.
“What kind of deal?” Harper asks the question I want to know as well.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.” Nico laughs a dark and sinister snigger that sends my stomach plummeting.
Silence ensues between Nico and Harper.
“Please,” Harper begs, “drop Moreno off at the hospital.”
“I have a better idea,” Nico says, and silence follows.
There’s the slamming of a car door.
“Luca, if you can hear me, we just pulled over. Nico got out of the car. We’re still on Route 93 heading south.”
For an instant, I unmute my device. “I can hear you,” I say, but I’m unsure if she can hear me. She doesn’t respond, indicating she can.
“Luca? Is that you? I can barely hear you. Shit, he’s—” she grows quiet. “What are you doing with Moreno?” Harper asks.
Ashton mutes our end of the call.
There’s the obvious slam of a car door. “Let me go!”
It sounds like she’s fighting him off. We’re half an hour out at best.
“Get off me!”
The door slams shut and then it does so again.
“Luca, he just dumped Moreno on the side of the road!”
Ashton retrieves his phone, smirking when he pulls up Harper’s location, showing it to me.
“How long have you been tracking my wife?” I sneer in disgust.
“Since Dante put a tracker on her phone. The first night they met.”
Shaking my head, I should be angry about the betrayal, but I’m grateful knowing that so long as they have battery power and cell service, we’ll know where they are.
“Text Dante, let him know where they stopped and dropped Moreno off.”
He taps at his phone, silent, and sighs.
“What?” I glance at him. Clearly, Dante sent him a text in response.
“You’re not going to like this,” Ashton says, his expression grim. “He wants us to pick up Moreno and drop him off at the hospital. Since we have a location on Harper, she’s secondary priority.”
“Secondary priority, my ass. I’m not?—”
Ashton types something quickly into his phone, and then it rings. He puts it on speaker for me to hear.
“Luca, you’re picking up Moreno. This isn’t up for discussion.” Dante is curt in his demand, to the point. “You’re the nearest and you have the exact location.”
“Ashton can drop you a pin and someone else can grab Moreno.”
