Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) by Leigh James Read Free Book Online Page A

face in his chest.
    “Tell me everything you know about her,” he said. He kept his hand on her hair, stroking it gently, and I felt a blind, ridiculous jealousy boil up inside me.
    It was just that he was looking at her so lovingly. And I knew the truth about her.
    He must have seen the expression on my face because he looked stricken for a second.
    “Liberty. I don’t think I’ve had the chance to say it yet: I love you.” He leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips. “I cannot describe how relieved I am that you’re alive. You know that, don’t you?” I nodded, pushing my petty jealousy to the side. I felt the warmth and strength of his chest and inhaled his delicious smell. I’d just needed to be near him again, to feel his strong touch. That he’d come for me and risked his life for me told me everything that I needed to know about us. It was real. He loved me, too. I promised myself in that moment that I would never leave him again, not willingly. We were stronger together than we ever could be apart.
    “I shot her because she was aiming her gun at me. She wouldn’t come with us willingly,” I said, as we sped through the darkness. “I’m so sorry.”
    “Please don’t say that. I’m the one who’s sorry. I left you down here too long. Her too,” he said, looking back at Catherine.
    “I think they turned her,” I whispered to him, afraid to hear myself say it aloud. Afraid for him to hear the truth. “She told me she was kidnapped when she first came down here. Angel Morales rescued her from them.” I couldn’t bring myself to talk about the sex trafficking.
    “She’s been with them ever since.” I didn’t want to say more right now. I couldn’t.
    “I should go back and kill them all,” John said. He had a hard look on his face I didn’t like.
    “Ethan, go back,” he said.
    “No!” I yelled. I watched as Ethan kept looking in the rearview mirror, seeing if he meant it.
    “Bad idea, John,” Matthew said. “You’re smarter than that. Don’t make a plan when you’re reacting.”
    “I said, turn the car around ,” John said, ignoring Matthew.
    “Absolutely not!” I yelled.
    Ethan looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Don’t you dare!” I spit at him. He had the courtesy to keep driving straight ahead.
    “John — I’ve been there for weeks. You can’t go back there. It’s a fucking cartel ,” I said. “It’s amazing that we even got out of there. If you go back, they’ll just shoot you, then come out and shoot the rest of us. Then all of this will have been for nothing.”
    He looked at me, his jaw set in a hard line.
    “Please. Let’s just get to the border,” I said.
    He looked out at the window at the darkness.
    “Someday,” he said, looking back at me.
    “Someday,” I agreed.
     

     
    Someday, I thought, looking over at Catherine. She was still completely out, a sheen of sweat covering her upper lip. I didn’t let myself finish the thought . The way John sat between us, with one arm around me and one hand still stroking Catherine’s cheek, made me realize I needed to keep quiet.
    At least he seemed more relaxed. I kept looking out the dark windows of the backseat, waiting for a crew of machine-gun wielding henchmen to come bombing toward us out of nowhere. But there was nothing. Not yet.
    “Why aren’t they coming after us?” I asked.
    “We left them a few more treats back there on the road,” John said. “They’re probably sending out decoys to see where they get blown up.”
    I knew he didn’t mean real decoys. He meant real people, just non-essential real people. I felt a dull headache set in. “How are we going to get out of here?” I asked. Matamoros was close to the border, but my passport and everything else were long gone. And Catherine obviously had nothing, not even consciousness, and she was bleeding. There were also lots of guns in the car. The back of the Hummer was filled with them.
    “We know someone in customs,” Matthew