Convicted (Entangled Ignite) by Dee Tenorio Read Free Book Online

want to go. I can’t .”
    “Yes, you can. You can run. We’ll find a way.”
    But Shana was already shaking her head. “Even if I could find somewhere to go, I can’t bring them all with me. I have nothing to support us. Nowhere to hide.”
    “And when he kills you? What happens to them then?”
    Shana swallowed, making an almost convulsive sound before shaking her head. “I don’t know.” She picked at the shirt on the table between them. “I never really thought he’d do it. He hates me, but he’s never been willing to let me go.”
    Because she wasn’t a person to him. She was a thing. A thing he owned. And Frank didn’t believe in sharing.
    Katrina looked into the eyes of her very desperate friend and took a risk. “I can get you out. All of you.”
    “What?”
    “I know people who can help get all of you out of here. But you’ve got to find something to use against him first, or he’ll keep coming after you. Something he wants more than you.”
    Shana pulled her hand away. “You know how he is. He watches everything I do. Goes through everything I own. He’ll know if I touch anything of his. He’ll know .”
    “Then just…” Katrina took hold of Shana’s shoulders to calm down the thread of hysteria she could hear taking hold. “Listen.” She made sure Shana met her gaze. “Listen as best as you can. He thinks he has you, that you’re no threat to him, but you’re right there next to him when he has his phone calls. His meetings with his men.”
    “He acts like I’m not even there,” Shana agreed in a soft voice, as if the wheels in her mind were starting to move again.
    “Listen for something important. Something he won’t want anyone to know. Something we can prove, so we can hold it over him when the time comes. Just make sure he doesn’t know you’re listening.” She didn’t have to say what the results of that would be.
    Of course, if Frank caught on, if Shana in any way let it slip that Katrina had told her what to look for… Well, odds were they’d both find out where Brynn was buried. Katrina swallowed past that. “Once you have some leverage, my friends can take you somewhere Frank will never find you. Someplace safe.”
    “What friends? I thought you’d burned all your bridges when you came back home.”
    Katrina smiled uncomfortably. She should have known Shana would remember that detail of her cover. “Let’s just say a few of my bridges were married, not burned.”
    At least the lie made Shana try to smile again. “You really think it could work?” Her gaze turned toward the hallway, toward Jimmy’s room.
    “If we’re careful, yes. But promise me, don’t go too far out on the limb. If you can’t get it, we’ll find something else. Another way. Understand?”
    Shana nodded, knotting her fingers with Katrina’s, a tight smile pulling at her swollen mouth. Even with all those bruises and bumps, Katrina could see the first flicker of hope in her friend in years.
    She blew out a breath that was equal parts guilt, fear, and hope. Two long years of undercover work and she had finally caught a break. She just hoped it wouldn’t cost this woman her life.
    …
    Rick turned their truck into the driveway of the Municipal Center. Town hall, the sheriff’s station, and the library all in one large, perfectly cultivated cul-de-sac. The brand new buildings next to all the run-down others going down Main Street always sent a feeling of wrong through Cade. He sent a sideways glance toward Rick, just to see if he had the same reaction to the disparity. Nothing there.
    Shana had insisted she and her son were fine and, despite obvious pressure from his partner, the woman refused to press charges, not that she needed to. Given that he and Rick had witnessed the assault in progress, they were able to take Carter in, but they all knew that would only hold him for forty-eight hours at most. A judge would let him out on a technicality or a lawyer would get him out with some