Page 3 of Honest Neglect

I squeezed my eyes shut again. Okay, so what was the last thing that I actually remembered? I chewed on my lip. I could remember being in my car. Heading to the animal shelter and making my way out to find Silver. I knew I couldn’t get her back, but if I could at least see her, that would be something. If I could at least look at her and know she was going to be okay. I wanted her to know I was there for her and that there was no way I was going to let anything happen to her, no matter what. She meant the world to me, and the thought of her being taken from me—and the thought of Tony being the reason behind it—was almost more than I could wrap my head around.

I wanted to cry as I thought back to that feeling again, climbing out of the car and rushing toward the animal shelter. Pleading and begging out loud, muttering under my breath a million prayers to anyone who might have been listening out there. That was vivid, painted with bright color over the inside of my head, and I hated how clear it was in my mind.

But then, I had felt someone grabbing me. The pressure of something over my mouth. The shock of it had been so intense, I’d hardly had time to take any of it in before I had just passed out, my vision blacking as I slumped into my attacker’s arms, whether I liked it or not.

I had a distant memory of the feel of being in a car or a vehicle of some kind. The wheels rolling beneath me, the feel of it under my back. I had been lying down, and even then, I could feel the pain starting to get the better of me. But then, I had slipped into the blackness again.

And now, I was here. I tried to lift my hands to my face to brush back my hair, only to find them bound behind my back. That was when the panic really started to set in. I let out a whimper and pulled at the restraints, doing everything I could to escape.

I was in some kind of warehouse. I could see that now. The light in here was dim, filtering in through a few filthy windows on the other side of this enormous space. Was it morning or evening? I couldn’t tell, and the thought suddenly made me feel queasy. How long had I been here? A couple of hours? A couple of days? There was no way for me to know for sure, and that scared the hell out of me.

I pulled at the tight bindings around my wrists until I felt them digging into my flesh. Letting out a cry, the tears began to leak down my cheeks. How could I have gotten myself into this mess? I knew I couldn’t be so reckless, not when I was dealing with Tony and his father. I knew them both too well to underestimate them.

A noise caught my attention, and my head snapped up. My mouth went dry. How long had it been since I’d had anything to drink? Or eat, for that matter? My body felt completely and utterly depleted, run dry of anything that might have sustained it.

I squinted into the darkness, trying to get a better look at who was approaching me. And as he stepped out into a shaft of light, I saw him and I felt like I was going to throw up.

Mark McCarthy. As in Tony’s father. The one person more sadistic than his son because he was the one who saw it happen and allowed it to continue. I squirmed in my seat, trying to get away from him as he drew closer, but there was no point to it. He crouched down in front of me, looking up at me with that cruel smile that all the McCarthy men seemed to have.

“Well, what do we have here?” he murmured, his voice low. I let out another whimper. This man terrified me. I knew the power he had in this place, and I knew it would have been all too easy for him to make me disappear. No, to make it look like I had never existed in the first place. I would have been a fool to underestimate someone like him, and I knew he was counting on that to ratchet up my fear even further.

“Please, Mark, just let me go,” I begged him. Maybe he would listen to some sense? Tony was clearly totally and utterly past that point, but perhaps his father had a shred of humanity left in him.

“Why? When you’re so comfortable,” he replied, straightening up and beginning to pace around the chair I was in. I could hear him moving around behind me, and I hated that I couldn’t even look at him to see what he was doing.

He exuded exactly the same energy he had when I had known him before. That complete and utter confidence in himself, that sureness that came off him in waves. He wanted everyone to know just how self-possessed he was. He wanted everyone to know that he had well and truly earned the power he had come into. There was nobody he couldn’t wrap around his little finger, and that was the scariest part of all of this. Nobody said no to him. Even when it came to hiding my body.

“It’s good to see you again after all this time, Lily,” he continued. “Tony talks about you all the time, you know.”

The thought of those two men discussing me when I wasn’t around made me want to throw up. I bit down hard on my lip, doing everything in my power not to give him a reaction. I knew he got off on scaring the shit out of me, and I would be damned if I just let him roll over me and do it.

“But I’m so sorry to hear about your dog,” he told me. I looked up at him as he rounded to my right once more.

“My dog?” I demanded. I tried to steel my voice, but the tremble came out in it anyway. I knew he noticed it. He nodded, an expression of faux apology on his face.

“You hadn’t heard?” he asked as though I was stupid. “The animal shelter.”

“What happened to the animal shelter?” I whispered. I had just been there. I had seen it standing. What had they done to it? Surely, they wouldn’t have killed those innocent animals. But what could I put past them at this point?

“It burned down,” he replied, shaking his head sadly, though I could tell there was no regret in what he was telling me.

I closed my eyes, feeling all my hope dissipate in a moment.

“Nothing left but ashes,” he continued, making sure to fill me in on the details.

A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it back down. He might just have been saying this to me to scare me into doing what he wanted. I couldn’t let him win, not now. I had come so far, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him ruin it for me.

“Wasn’t that bitch of yours there?” he asked innocently. I hated it when he did this. It was a tactic Tony had played when we were dating, too—teasing me about something he knew hurt me to the core and pretending like he had no idea why what he was doing was so harmful. I gritted my teeth and shook my head.

“Nope,” I replied. The venom in my voice caught even me off guard, but this was Silver we were talking about. My dog. My girl. I wasn’t going to let him talk about her like that.

“Been such a hard few days for the town,” he continued. “What with—Well, I’m sure you’ve heard by now.”

What? What else could he possibly have? My mind flashed to my mom, and my stomach curdled as I thought about something happening to her. She was so weak, what with the operation and all, and she wouldn’t have been able to fight off anyone who had nefarious plans for her.

“Warren,” he remarked. “You didn’t know about that? I heard the two of you were pretty close. Guess it doesn’t count for much, though.”

“What happened to Warren?” I whispered to him. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. I was sure they wouldn’t have just killed him. No, they knew they could use him as leverage over me. To do what, I could only imagine, but I guessed I was about to find out.