Branson had gone to the sheriff.
“Can we trust him?” Tory stared at her, something in his gaze she didn’t understand, while everyone around them froze waiting for her answer.
“Yes. He’s family.”
***
She wouldn’t let Mark down.
Tory kept looking at her. No doubt wondering if he should have left her behind.
But she kept it together.
Barely.
But she did it.
For Mark.
Now they were barreling down the freeway the only vehicle in a sea of bikes, a slightly terrifying sight.
Keep it together.
“Your friend said the word cartel,” Tory said, eyeing her in the review mirror. “He said it like you would know. Is that where you have been?”
She shook her head and turned to look out the window.
“Winter, there will be no repercussion to what you say. You are our sister. That is it. We just need to know what we are walking in to. These men need to know,” Tory continued.
“I was held against my will. And for a long time, I didn’t think I was going to get out. But then Mark came and saved me. He killed the man that father had sold me to.” She said, and waited for their reactions.
Tory’s hands on the wheel flexed and she clenched her fists trying to keep it together.
“Fuck. That god damn motherfucker!” Tory snarled.
“I hated him, but now I’m wishing I would have been the one to kill him,” Ben gritted out next to her.
“Mark saved me. And now they are after him because he saved me,” she whispered.
This was all her fault.
I’m sorry, Mark.
“It sounds like he is the type of guy that wouldn’t care. That he would do it again.”
She smiled sadly. That was her Mark.
I’m so sorry.
“What is the name of the man that held you?” Tory asked, eyeing her and she swallowed, steeling herself before she uttered the name.
“Ernesto,” she whispered, the words twisting her stomach, and she had to swallow to keep from puking right there.
“Winter?” Ben asked his face white, his eyes staring at her in horror.
It seemed like even in death Ernesto had made a name for himself.
“Not right now,” she whispered, and Tory cursed under his breath again.
