Read an Excerpt from "To Be Red: TBR" below
|
Everyone died on that yacht, except for me
I was trapped in that evil house, assaulted, chained to a wall, and filmed, and although I’m finally rescued, I am betrayed. The fraternity declares me too dangerous to release. I’m gifted to Rafael, my ex-bodyguard and man with the most sinful eyes. Running from him awakens bad options, for he brings in Lazlo to join him in taming me, bedding me. Hold my throat. Pin me against a wall. Make me drop to my knees... I discover Lazlo’s mouth is good for more than talking… When they’re tasked with finding whoever arranged the slaughter on that yacht, I join the investigation. Can I finally make someone pay for what happened to me? Those killers we’re tracking are also watching us… Surviving this will take luck, two wildly controlling men, and for me to resurrect my courage You can expect
💥 Two possessive, obsessive, protective, and morally gray anti-heroes. 💥 Dark Captive romance 💥CNC (Consensual nonconsent) 💥 Touch her and Die 💥 Vengeance and Vigilante Justice - Georgia really wants to make them pay! 💥Secret society of deviant millionaires and billionaires. Warning, Lazlo may make groanworthy jokes. This is an interconnected standalone romance. Binge the series from the start if you need to know everything that has happened prior to this. Read Boneyard HEA first if you want to know everything about Georgia, though she only appears in the final chapters. |
What readers are saying about To Be Red: TBR
|
"I absolutely loved this book.
This series has been one surprise after another, but I think this one might be my favorite.” Teresa Juckett ❤️ "IN.TENSE! Am I surprised? Absolutely not! Ms. Silverwood typically has my heart in my throat! Fast-paced. Steamy. Plot twists. I loved every single dark minute! " Linda ❤️ |
"I savored every delectable page!
I found myself falling for the fictional Raphael and Lazlo right alongside Georgia . . . well, until the next book boyfriend comes along 😉" 💥 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Morally Gray Nora ❤️ |
“Intense, dark, and full of twists.
I was hooked from the very beginning!” Arely ❤️ “Engaging, steamy action drama, twists and more!” Jenni ❤️ |
~*~
To Be Red: TBR - Excerpt
Prologue
Georgia
(If you need a little reminder of what happened to Georgia in Boneyard HEA, keep reading. If not, scroll onward to Chapter 1)
I’m not sure how long I was in that evil house. Shawn and Zasha weren’t into giving clocks to their torture victims. They were more into assaulting us and, yes, the torture stuff, chaining us to walls, and filming it all.
How droll to do all that and need to be able to pull up the vids, one night, and sip wine while you jerked off to them. My sense of humor has become rather bleak.
Beneath everything that happened in Australia, lurking like a shark in the grass, was the CNC Fraternity. Juniper and Aaron were members, and although they were captives and chained beside me in that room, they helped free me.
Shawn and Zasha were also members. I will never entirely trust anyone who declares themselves a part of that fraternity. Which is why Rafael, my well-muscled bodyguard, will never charm me.
I wish I had someone I could run to, someone whose arms I could fall into, someone to hold me while I cry.
After arriving in London, I visit a therapist and put a checkmark on my to-do list. Then I walk down those steps ready to vanish into England and lose Rafael, because I do not need him or anyone like him in my vicinity, ever again.
But trouble has followed me across the world.
We are being tracked and with few options left to us, Rafael and I jump into Alden’s Porsche to escape.
Men are still after me, and this time they only want to kill me.
There is one more problem—Alden’s brother may have sent me to that house.
The Porsche is speeding down the country road between hedgerows when a man steps out and unrolls a strip of spikes. As the four tires blow out, Alden loses control, and the car slews sideways and hurtles off the road…
Georgia
(If you need a little reminder of what happened to Georgia in Boneyard HEA, keep reading. If not, scroll onward to Chapter 1)
I’m not sure how long I was in that evil house. Shawn and Zasha weren’t into giving clocks to their torture victims. They were more into assaulting us and, yes, the torture stuff, chaining us to walls, and filming it all.
How droll to do all that and need to be able to pull up the vids, one night, and sip wine while you jerked off to them. My sense of humor has become rather bleak.
Beneath everything that happened in Australia, lurking like a shark in the grass, was the CNC Fraternity. Juniper and Aaron were members, and although they were captives and chained beside me in that room, they helped free me.
Shawn and Zasha were also members. I will never entirely trust anyone who declares themselves a part of that fraternity. Which is why Rafael, my well-muscled bodyguard, will never charm me.
I wish I had someone I could run to, someone whose arms I could fall into, someone to hold me while I cry.
After arriving in London, I visit a therapist and put a checkmark on my to-do list. Then I walk down those steps ready to vanish into England and lose Rafael, because I do not need him or anyone like him in my vicinity, ever again.
But trouble has followed me across the world.
We are being tracked and with few options left to us, Rafael and I jump into Alden’s Porsche to escape.
Men are still after me, and this time they only want to kill me.
There is one more problem—Alden’s brother may have sent me to that house.
The Porsche is speeding down the country road between hedgerows when a man steps out and unrolls a strip of spikes. As the four tires blow out, Alden loses control, and the car slews sideways and hurtles off the road…
~*~
Chapter 1
Georgia
The air bag has puffed high and blotted out the sunlight. I press it down, batting at it, blinking away something leaking into my eyes. The scream of the engine dies to a low whine then ceases. The car stops rocking and banging about, leaving only a few creaks. Beyond the cracks in the glass, the shattered windscreen, the twists and dents in the hood, a grassy field lies blanketed by mist. A bird flits by, zipping from right to left.
Nothing moves out there, though the sounds of the crash seem to be bouncing about in my head. A wisp of smoke curls up from somewhere on the car.
Alden reaches in and starts helping me untangle myself. “Come on. You need to get out.”
I grunt and try to shift. Because of fire, I suppose.
After shrugging off the seat belt and smacking some more at the stupid, deflating air bag to get it to behave, I worm through the passenger door then into the open, walk a few steps and collapse. Alden is talking, asking if I’m okay, I think. He has his hand on my shoulder, but I can barely hear him past the ringing. I wave him off. He gives me a last eyeroll and a shrug, then returns to where Rafael squats near a corpse, patting him down. He pulls a wallet from a pocket, then a phone.
When Alden does the same at the next body—squats and examines him—he retrieves a gun. He aims it low and crooked as if about to shoot the ground, or the man. I feel like I should say something but…he wouldn’t?
“Hey!” Rafael is a moment late for there’s the sharp sound of a gunshot. The corpse jumps.
Alden shrugs, grins. “The fucker killed my car.”
“Give me that.” He takes the gun away from my dumbass ex-lover.
A distant noise from the direction of the road draws their attention.
I sit with my head in my hands, staring at them through my splayed fingers, as they go back through the hedge. On the way here, I watched the route. I know where I am. I know where I can go to hide. I just need some fucking luck, for once, please.
Time to get up.
Once I’m upright, I survey the muted chaos. My squeaky panting is a reminder of how close I came to being badly hurt. Hand on heart, I take some long deep breaths.
Smoke rises from the hissing engine bay and the punctured tires of the Porsche. I swipe tangled hair off my forehead and wetness cools fingers.
Blood. Blood trails down them from my fingertips. I open my hand to find my palm is red. It’s only blood.
Everyone has some.
Guess I whacked my head on something when we crashed.
I’m lucky. I could be dead. The bodies of the men Rafael shot add macabre wisps of steam to the mist. I tug my jacket closer, then meticulously do up one button with shaky fingers. It’s cold enough for blood to turn to mist.
The living men? They’re on the other side of the hedgerow the car ploughed into when we slid off the road. One voice sounds annoyed.
“These assholes have fucked up my day!”
Who is th… Oh.
Alden. My brain remembers to remember.
He’s still going on about it. I smirk at the asshole behavior. Typical of him. I touch my throbbing forehead, wincing as I scrape the abrasion. I jerked forward and cut myself. It’s nothing major. I’ve had far worse, like at the--
The House.
A grinning Shawn and Zasha surface from my memories, advancing on me, silently, with chains and a giant spear. Step, step, step. I swallow.
Anger cracks in and through me, a hot crowbar wedged hard into my ribcage. Shame and horror and terror are all mixed together. I cover my mouth, try to remember to breathe and feel the solid ground under my feet.
Fuck them. They’re dead too.
Today is a walk in the park, a stroll in a carnival. Today is fun times compared to them. I find I’m curling my lip, sneering cruelly. I saw them both die.
Nothing could be as bad as what they did to me.
Live life in the here and the now.
I recheck my surrounds. A zigzag of white roofs peaks above the treetops, hinting at a large manor house a mile or so ahead.
Gingerly, I take a few strides. My black gym shoes seem to find every hollow under the grass, but I keep my balance.
As I pass a corpse with a bloody head, I squint and come to a halt, considering my options. Spitting seems pointless. He’s dead. So I kick him instead. The physical, solid thud of my boot sinking into his flesh is so fucking satisfying in a way that spitting could never accomplish.
These men are connected, somehow, to what was done to me. Yet that last night of my normal existence, the night of the party on the yacht a month ago? That is a muddle of dislocated memories.
This body is the symbol of all my enemies, of all those who wanted me defiled and killed.
So I spit anyway. I land a spray on his still face and I move on.
The Porsche-carved gap in the hedgerow calls to me. After glancing back at the car, I step partway through to peer around the edges of what is left of the tattered vegetation, and as I do so, I remember my plan. I remember what I wanted to do once I arrived in London.
Escape.
Escape from Rafael. That man watches everything I do, has done so ever since he first laid eyes on me. Should I be happy about that since it came in tandem with the deaths of Shawn and Zasha, and my freedom from their tortures?
Is it attraction this devotion he shows, or is it that he’s been instructed not to let me do anything rash? He’s hot, experienced with weapons, and probably fucks like a champion.
Except I do not need a desirable, dangerous John Wick type. I do not.
The CNC Fraternity is insanely wrong, that I do know. Juniper filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge before I left Australia. They are kinky as fuck, organized, and capable of mustering enormous power and wealth due to their sprawling manifesto of members.
Billionaires, government heads, investors, company CEOs, and for all I know, half of the lords and ladies in the UK are members. At least Australia is free of those posh types. We just have a ton of dickheads in power, who also have more money and power than they should. Capitalism sucks when you’re on the wrong side of it.
Alden and Rafael are walking away from me, along the side of the road, with Rafe at the front carrying his gun. I step backward, carefully, retreating into the field. He’s making sure no one else is here. Sensible. Although Alden is tagging along behind him, I doubt he’d be of much use in a fight.
Maybe I can get far enough away in the opposite direction that he won’t find me. At least I’m wearing sensible shoes. I don’t want to feel like I’m merely an object to be surveilled. I need more. Warmth, companionship, and true friendship would be the minimum. Once upon a time I had that.
I don’t know why Rafael sticks to me like glue, but a glimpse of gray metal ahead, through a grove of trees, solidifies my intent. Escape. I think it’s a van, and it’s been parked off the road in a niche, where trees shield it from passing traffic.
Looking over my shoulder reveals only the hedgerow with the leaves shuddering in a light breeze coming across the field. Alden the joker and Rafe are still preoccupied. The corpses show as mounds above the grass stalks. And the Porsche keeps smoking, ticking as the metal heats or cools.
If the grass catches fire will this be a signal that Hell is coming?
I eye my finger stump where it ends with neat suture scars, and my heart pounds into overdrive. I hear the snick-snack of the secateurs again. Feel the grind on my bone as the blades crunch shut.
After the last month of horrors that are surely imprinted on my soul, on my heart, burned into me for the rest of my life, Hell would be a let-down.
Snick, crunch, snack.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Ignoring the aches and twinges in my back and legs, I resume my wobbly march toward the vehicle in the trees.
That probably belongs…make that belonged, to the dead men.
Are those hoofbeats? I cock my head, half-turning and listening.
My hearing might be damaged. Yet through the large gap in the hedgerow I catch sight of someone riding down the road toward Rafael. He slows and turns his head as he passes and our eyes meet and lock. On the huge black horse is a man with peppery gray hair, wearing a fucking suit. What is it with the brits and their attire? Then he’s gone. I should hurry. I don’t know who he is and if this property is where Alden was going, it could be that man’s land.
The Somersby’s? His dad was Lord Somersby? Benjamin Somersby, my strangely random memory tells me. It cannot remember recipes or song lyrics but spits out the names of British Lordy Sir Somethings on a whim.
Limping—I may have sprained my ankle—I reach the grove of trees and yank at the driver’s side door of a silver-gray Skoda SUV, while praying they left the keys somewhere inside. The door opens.
Yesss.
I slide in and softly shut the door, assessing the controls as I do so.
After a frantic five minutes of searching under every mat and in all the hiding places, I find the keys nestled in the cup holder in the central compartment, under some balled-up grotty tissues.
How did I miss them?
This is an EV. Thank god. Getting this thing going should be simple. I press start and it barely makes a sound, the sneaky car, even as I shift into drive and edge out onto the track they’ve used to back into this hiding spot. I think this runs at right angles to the road we used. I accelerate onto the small one-lane, one-way road then curve right and merge into the larger road.
I’m cruising along, purring away from Rafael. That simple.
That’s a yell from behind. I refuse to check the rearview mirror.
Rafael might hate me for escaping him. Good.
He’s been like a parasitic thing on my ass, watching me ever since he helped extricate me from that hellhole place, from the Evil House.
I clench my jaw and stop myself reminiscing over the bad shit.
I was beginning to like him and that would never do. Is he a good man? It’s possible.
I’m stupid for leaving his protection but staying also has risks.
Providing this car has no tracker on it, it should be safe-ish, and what self-respecting assassins have trackers on their getaway vehicle?
Safe, providing the cops don’t come after me, too. Three men are dead back there, with bullet holes in them. There is a place on the coast where I can hide. I hope James and Raina are still away. And if they aren’t? I’ll beg them to let me stay. I just need some peace, some space, then a miracle. I can keep away from everyone for a week or two.
Is that long enough though. My hands are shaking on the wheel. I relax them and inhale slowly, exhale. The tires keep humming. And after that? How do I get home to Australia?
Flying saucer? And it’s not exactly home anymore.
An eerie kind of silence descends on my thoughts. I don’t know what I’m going to do, really. If I can rest and think and get my head in order, I will still need to meet the world again.
My butt shifts on the upholstery as I go over a bumpy section and I remember the surgery I had done in Australia. Internal sutures, after the finger surgery was done, because the first doctor didn’t check me inside. Despite all the rapes and the violence I told him about. The stupid fucker. Men.
I know I shouldn’t think that—putting all men in the same basket is wrong and dumb but…one basket is easier.
The scalpel blade, when I pressed it into Alden’s neck. I can see it, feel it twist in my hand, and the red line appear on his skin.
I dearly wanted to cut him deep, and he didn’t even do anything bad. He tried to help me. Fuck men though. Even Rafael.
Joseph and his damn drug-fueled party started this. May he burn in Hell, rot for eternity.
I merge onto the highway and head north, feeling the pounding of my angry, anxiety-riddled heart. I’m not normal right now. Surprise surprise.
Those men in London were chasing me. Only me. I find I’ve pressed the accelerator too much and I’m speeding. I ease off. I don’t have a driver’s license here. If I do something wrong and get pulled over, how do I explain this car?
Fuck the police too.
I wriggle, settle myself in the seat, and pray for an easy run to their house. I’ve no phone and no money. I eye the glove box. It’s dead unlikely I’ll find money in there or a paper map, but it’s worth a look.
Phones are bad, remember. Phones can be tracked.
I can do this. I’ll ask directions at a service station and keep calm.
I pinch my lips together. I can do this. Today was scary.
But Shawn and Zasha were worse.
***
Rafael
As the rider slows his horse to a trot, his frown lessens. “Alden! You’re okay!” The hooves make loud clops when they strike the road. From the way he turned his head as he passed the flattened section of hedgerow, he saw the wreck. Though perhaps not the bodies.
Alden smiles grimly and nods. “I’m fine, father, though the Porsche is a write-off.”
“I see.” The man leans forward over the withers of his mount, his hands fidgeting on the reins, his eyes and mouth hard.
I lower the gun to my side.
He takes a few measured seconds to assess me and my weapon then our nearby surroundings. “Good. Thank god you’re not hurt.”
He carefully dismounts, keeping the reins in one hand, and giving the horse a pat. Then he steps over to also pat his son on the shoulder and grip him there. He gives the bemused Alden a light shake.
At a guess, from the peppering of gray in his hair, he must be about fifty.
Finally, he looks to me. “What’s happened here? That looked like a gun in the grass back there, and you have one. I expect the police have been called?”
“Not ye—”
“No.” I cut off Alden. “I wouldn’t.” I’m thinking fast under the surface while trying to act in command of the situation. This could be a nightmare for the CNC Fraternity. If no one had arrived to see this, we had a chance to cordon off this area and wipe the crash site clean. I will have to make contact and ask. They offered me a broad slate of services for watching her, keeping her under control.
Now I’m having to sort out what to do, in seconds.
Georgia is still back there. I glance above the hedge and am relieved at the lack of smoke in the air—only the same burned rubber and oil smell.
I need to go check on her.
Alden’s father raises his eyebrows. “And you are?”
“The man who shot the three men who spiked the tires then tried to kill us. If…” I say this firmly as he opens his mouth to speak. “If you call the cops, you’ll be in the media spotlight for months.”
“I don’t know you, sir. You carry a gun and you helped my son survive this—I can see this and I am grateful. However, the repercussions from not reporting this and it then being discovered would be worse and much more illegal than—”
“I may have shot a man too.” Alden grimaces. “Wasn’t exactly murder but the asshole was lying down…”
Benjamin sighs. “On top of the awful news I have for you this is bad. Don’t look at your phone, boy. Please.” He runs his hand through his hair, making what was a perfectly orderly short haircut a ruffled mess. “Who am I talking to here?”
“What awful news?” Confused, Alden looks at his father, checks his jeans pocket for his phone and takes it out but doesn’t look.
“Just wait. Please.” Again he squeezes his son’s shoulder.
“Rafael Navarro,” I tell him.
“I’m Benjamin Somersby.”
He offers his hand and I shake it. I could leave this to stew in his mind, and hope he comes around, though the chances of that are small. On the other hand, I know how the frat board works, how they love getting hooks into new members who have powers they can cobble to their own.
I eye both men, giving the father a chance to say this news he has, but he waits for my answer. Is that pain I see in his eyes whenever he looks at his son?
This situation here needs resolving ASAP. I have to recheck Georgia.
“I can fix this. I can contact a man that you can talk to. He will, I believe, convince you that cleaning this up, all of this”—I sweep my hand out to the side—“is perfectly possible. If we are fucking fast.”
As long as no stray cars, riders, gardeners, or farmers even, or whoever lives around here, don’t decide to use this road. The sign we passed, a half a mile back, read Somersby Estate, and that probably means we are on land Alden’s family owns. All of it for tens of thousands of acres, if I know the Brits.
“I prefer my family to stay out of this sort of furor but we cannot hide that.” He jabs toward the hedge.
Furor? Now I recognize him, from a lobbying meeting my family organized for our company. He’s a sitting member in the House of Lords. Interesting friends, my Georgia has cultivated. She said she was snatched off a road in Australia while out riding her bike?
I can’t help using Alden’s idiotic action as part of my reasoning. “Shooting people in the head when they’re not certified dead is regarded as murder and, yes, I did that too. That said, I know people who will want this quashed. For reasons.” How to say this? “The woman on the other side of this hedge needs to be…”
Kept quarantined slash kept captive slash away from the press. Choose one.
“Surely, she is not our problem?” Benjamin folds his arms.
I lamely add, “She’s special. These people I can phone know you, or some of them do. All I need to do is contact one of them and I feel sure they will convince you that we can and should hide this.”
Now he looks angry, bows his head and rubs his finger back and forth, above his nose. “Okay. Okay.”
Only a little angry. I’m impressed. Most people would be terrified by a stranger with a gun standing before them, after having murdered three people.
“Who then?”
I rattle off three names. The ones he is likely to know. CNC Fraternity board members, all of them.
He sighs, sniffs. When he looks up there’s a measure of respect in his voice that wasn’t present before. “You think…you can get rid of bodies and a destroyed Porsche? And what about the pretty, red-headed woman back there. What if she talks?”
“She won’t,” Alden begins. “Those men were sent by Joseph to kill her and—”
“No, they weren’t.”
“Father.” Alden frowns. “I was informed they were coming by Joseph himself.”
“No, you weren’t.” His voice cracks. “Why would he and besides…” He heaves out a shaky breath. “Joseph has been dead for weeks. He was found floating in the sea off the coast of Spain.”
Now I can see why there is a world of hurt wrecking this man.
“Fuck. No! No!” Alden barks out then steps back, shock in the wideness of his eyes. “How long…how long have you known?” His voice drops to nothing. Clearly, they were close, despite the bad things he said about Joseph on the way here.
“A week.” He walks close to his son then opens his arms and pulls him in close. This is a private moment and I half turn away, giving them space as they hug each other and Alden sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be here that I told you. You!” he snaps and turns his head, frowns at me.
“Yes?”
“Do it. Get me this damn person on the phone."
To Be Red: TBR Copyright © Cari Silverwood 2026
Georgia
The air bag has puffed high and blotted out the sunlight. I press it down, batting at it, blinking away something leaking into my eyes. The scream of the engine dies to a low whine then ceases. The car stops rocking and banging about, leaving only a few creaks. Beyond the cracks in the glass, the shattered windscreen, the twists and dents in the hood, a grassy field lies blanketed by mist. A bird flits by, zipping from right to left.
Nothing moves out there, though the sounds of the crash seem to be bouncing about in my head. A wisp of smoke curls up from somewhere on the car.
Alden reaches in and starts helping me untangle myself. “Come on. You need to get out.”
I grunt and try to shift. Because of fire, I suppose.
After shrugging off the seat belt and smacking some more at the stupid, deflating air bag to get it to behave, I worm through the passenger door then into the open, walk a few steps and collapse. Alden is talking, asking if I’m okay, I think. He has his hand on my shoulder, but I can barely hear him past the ringing. I wave him off. He gives me a last eyeroll and a shrug, then returns to where Rafael squats near a corpse, patting him down. He pulls a wallet from a pocket, then a phone.
When Alden does the same at the next body—squats and examines him—he retrieves a gun. He aims it low and crooked as if about to shoot the ground, or the man. I feel like I should say something but…he wouldn’t?
“Hey!” Rafael is a moment late for there’s the sharp sound of a gunshot. The corpse jumps.
Alden shrugs, grins. “The fucker killed my car.”
“Give me that.” He takes the gun away from my dumbass ex-lover.
A distant noise from the direction of the road draws their attention.
I sit with my head in my hands, staring at them through my splayed fingers, as they go back through the hedge. On the way here, I watched the route. I know where I am. I know where I can go to hide. I just need some fucking luck, for once, please.
Time to get up.
Once I’m upright, I survey the muted chaos. My squeaky panting is a reminder of how close I came to being badly hurt. Hand on heart, I take some long deep breaths.
Smoke rises from the hissing engine bay and the punctured tires of the Porsche. I swipe tangled hair off my forehead and wetness cools fingers.
Blood. Blood trails down them from my fingertips. I open my hand to find my palm is red. It’s only blood.
Everyone has some.
Guess I whacked my head on something when we crashed.
I’m lucky. I could be dead. The bodies of the men Rafael shot add macabre wisps of steam to the mist. I tug my jacket closer, then meticulously do up one button with shaky fingers. It’s cold enough for blood to turn to mist.
The living men? They’re on the other side of the hedgerow the car ploughed into when we slid off the road. One voice sounds annoyed.
“These assholes have fucked up my day!”
Who is th… Oh.
Alden. My brain remembers to remember.
He’s still going on about it. I smirk at the asshole behavior. Typical of him. I touch my throbbing forehead, wincing as I scrape the abrasion. I jerked forward and cut myself. It’s nothing major. I’ve had far worse, like at the--
The House.
A grinning Shawn and Zasha surface from my memories, advancing on me, silently, with chains and a giant spear. Step, step, step. I swallow.
Anger cracks in and through me, a hot crowbar wedged hard into my ribcage. Shame and horror and terror are all mixed together. I cover my mouth, try to remember to breathe and feel the solid ground under my feet.
Fuck them. They’re dead too.
Today is a walk in the park, a stroll in a carnival. Today is fun times compared to them. I find I’m curling my lip, sneering cruelly. I saw them both die.
Nothing could be as bad as what they did to me.
Live life in the here and the now.
I recheck my surrounds. A zigzag of white roofs peaks above the treetops, hinting at a large manor house a mile or so ahead.
Gingerly, I take a few strides. My black gym shoes seem to find every hollow under the grass, but I keep my balance.
As I pass a corpse with a bloody head, I squint and come to a halt, considering my options. Spitting seems pointless. He’s dead. So I kick him instead. The physical, solid thud of my boot sinking into his flesh is so fucking satisfying in a way that spitting could never accomplish.
These men are connected, somehow, to what was done to me. Yet that last night of my normal existence, the night of the party on the yacht a month ago? That is a muddle of dislocated memories.
This body is the symbol of all my enemies, of all those who wanted me defiled and killed.
So I spit anyway. I land a spray on his still face and I move on.
The Porsche-carved gap in the hedgerow calls to me. After glancing back at the car, I step partway through to peer around the edges of what is left of the tattered vegetation, and as I do so, I remember my plan. I remember what I wanted to do once I arrived in London.
Escape.
Escape from Rafael. That man watches everything I do, has done so ever since he first laid eyes on me. Should I be happy about that since it came in tandem with the deaths of Shawn and Zasha, and my freedom from their tortures?
Is it attraction this devotion he shows, or is it that he’s been instructed not to let me do anything rash? He’s hot, experienced with weapons, and probably fucks like a champion.
Except I do not need a desirable, dangerous John Wick type. I do not.
The CNC Fraternity is insanely wrong, that I do know. Juniper filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge before I left Australia. They are kinky as fuck, organized, and capable of mustering enormous power and wealth due to their sprawling manifesto of members.
Billionaires, government heads, investors, company CEOs, and for all I know, half of the lords and ladies in the UK are members. At least Australia is free of those posh types. We just have a ton of dickheads in power, who also have more money and power than they should. Capitalism sucks when you’re on the wrong side of it.
Alden and Rafael are walking away from me, along the side of the road, with Rafe at the front carrying his gun. I step backward, carefully, retreating into the field. He’s making sure no one else is here. Sensible. Although Alden is tagging along behind him, I doubt he’d be of much use in a fight.
Maybe I can get far enough away in the opposite direction that he won’t find me. At least I’m wearing sensible shoes. I don’t want to feel like I’m merely an object to be surveilled. I need more. Warmth, companionship, and true friendship would be the minimum. Once upon a time I had that.
I don’t know why Rafael sticks to me like glue, but a glimpse of gray metal ahead, through a grove of trees, solidifies my intent. Escape. I think it’s a van, and it’s been parked off the road in a niche, where trees shield it from passing traffic.
Looking over my shoulder reveals only the hedgerow with the leaves shuddering in a light breeze coming across the field. Alden the joker and Rafe are still preoccupied. The corpses show as mounds above the grass stalks. And the Porsche keeps smoking, ticking as the metal heats or cools.
If the grass catches fire will this be a signal that Hell is coming?
I eye my finger stump where it ends with neat suture scars, and my heart pounds into overdrive. I hear the snick-snack of the secateurs again. Feel the grind on my bone as the blades crunch shut.
After the last month of horrors that are surely imprinted on my soul, on my heart, burned into me for the rest of my life, Hell would be a let-down.
Snick, crunch, snack.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
Ignoring the aches and twinges in my back and legs, I resume my wobbly march toward the vehicle in the trees.
That probably belongs…make that belonged, to the dead men.
Are those hoofbeats? I cock my head, half-turning and listening.
My hearing might be damaged. Yet through the large gap in the hedgerow I catch sight of someone riding down the road toward Rafael. He slows and turns his head as he passes and our eyes meet and lock. On the huge black horse is a man with peppery gray hair, wearing a fucking suit. What is it with the brits and their attire? Then he’s gone. I should hurry. I don’t know who he is and if this property is where Alden was going, it could be that man’s land.
The Somersby’s? His dad was Lord Somersby? Benjamin Somersby, my strangely random memory tells me. It cannot remember recipes or song lyrics but spits out the names of British Lordy Sir Somethings on a whim.
Limping—I may have sprained my ankle—I reach the grove of trees and yank at the driver’s side door of a silver-gray Skoda SUV, while praying they left the keys somewhere inside. The door opens.
Yesss.
I slide in and softly shut the door, assessing the controls as I do so.
After a frantic five minutes of searching under every mat and in all the hiding places, I find the keys nestled in the cup holder in the central compartment, under some balled-up grotty tissues.
How did I miss them?
This is an EV. Thank god. Getting this thing going should be simple. I press start and it barely makes a sound, the sneaky car, even as I shift into drive and edge out onto the track they’ve used to back into this hiding spot. I think this runs at right angles to the road we used. I accelerate onto the small one-lane, one-way road then curve right and merge into the larger road.
I’m cruising along, purring away from Rafael. That simple.
That’s a yell from behind. I refuse to check the rearview mirror.
Rafael might hate me for escaping him. Good.
He’s been like a parasitic thing on my ass, watching me ever since he helped extricate me from that hellhole place, from the Evil House.
I clench my jaw and stop myself reminiscing over the bad shit.
I was beginning to like him and that would never do. Is he a good man? It’s possible.
I’m stupid for leaving his protection but staying also has risks.
Providing this car has no tracker on it, it should be safe-ish, and what self-respecting assassins have trackers on their getaway vehicle?
Safe, providing the cops don’t come after me, too. Three men are dead back there, with bullet holes in them. There is a place on the coast where I can hide. I hope James and Raina are still away. And if they aren’t? I’ll beg them to let me stay. I just need some peace, some space, then a miracle. I can keep away from everyone for a week or two.
Is that long enough though. My hands are shaking on the wheel. I relax them and inhale slowly, exhale. The tires keep humming. And after that? How do I get home to Australia?
Flying saucer? And it’s not exactly home anymore.
An eerie kind of silence descends on my thoughts. I don’t know what I’m going to do, really. If I can rest and think and get my head in order, I will still need to meet the world again.
My butt shifts on the upholstery as I go over a bumpy section and I remember the surgery I had done in Australia. Internal sutures, after the finger surgery was done, because the first doctor didn’t check me inside. Despite all the rapes and the violence I told him about. The stupid fucker. Men.
I know I shouldn’t think that—putting all men in the same basket is wrong and dumb but…one basket is easier.
The scalpel blade, when I pressed it into Alden’s neck. I can see it, feel it twist in my hand, and the red line appear on his skin.
I dearly wanted to cut him deep, and he didn’t even do anything bad. He tried to help me. Fuck men though. Even Rafael.
Joseph and his damn drug-fueled party started this. May he burn in Hell, rot for eternity.
I merge onto the highway and head north, feeling the pounding of my angry, anxiety-riddled heart. I’m not normal right now. Surprise surprise.
Those men in London were chasing me. Only me. I find I’ve pressed the accelerator too much and I’m speeding. I ease off. I don’t have a driver’s license here. If I do something wrong and get pulled over, how do I explain this car?
Fuck the police too.
I wriggle, settle myself in the seat, and pray for an easy run to their house. I’ve no phone and no money. I eye the glove box. It’s dead unlikely I’ll find money in there or a paper map, but it’s worth a look.
Phones are bad, remember. Phones can be tracked.
I can do this. I’ll ask directions at a service station and keep calm.
I pinch my lips together. I can do this. Today was scary.
But Shawn and Zasha were worse.
***
Rafael
As the rider slows his horse to a trot, his frown lessens. “Alden! You’re okay!” The hooves make loud clops when they strike the road. From the way he turned his head as he passed the flattened section of hedgerow, he saw the wreck. Though perhaps not the bodies.
Alden smiles grimly and nods. “I’m fine, father, though the Porsche is a write-off.”
“I see.” The man leans forward over the withers of his mount, his hands fidgeting on the reins, his eyes and mouth hard.
I lower the gun to my side.
He takes a few measured seconds to assess me and my weapon then our nearby surroundings. “Good. Thank god you’re not hurt.”
He carefully dismounts, keeping the reins in one hand, and giving the horse a pat. Then he steps over to also pat his son on the shoulder and grip him there. He gives the bemused Alden a light shake.
At a guess, from the peppering of gray in his hair, he must be about fifty.
Finally, he looks to me. “What’s happened here? That looked like a gun in the grass back there, and you have one. I expect the police have been called?”
“Not ye—”
“No.” I cut off Alden. “I wouldn’t.” I’m thinking fast under the surface while trying to act in command of the situation. This could be a nightmare for the CNC Fraternity. If no one had arrived to see this, we had a chance to cordon off this area and wipe the crash site clean. I will have to make contact and ask. They offered me a broad slate of services for watching her, keeping her under control.
Now I’m having to sort out what to do, in seconds.
Georgia is still back there. I glance above the hedge and am relieved at the lack of smoke in the air—only the same burned rubber and oil smell.
I need to go check on her.
Alden’s father raises his eyebrows. “And you are?”
“The man who shot the three men who spiked the tires then tried to kill us. If…” I say this firmly as he opens his mouth to speak. “If you call the cops, you’ll be in the media spotlight for months.”
“I don’t know you, sir. You carry a gun and you helped my son survive this—I can see this and I am grateful. However, the repercussions from not reporting this and it then being discovered would be worse and much more illegal than—”
“I may have shot a man too.” Alden grimaces. “Wasn’t exactly murder but the asshole was lying down…”
Benjamin sighs. “On top of the awful news I have for you this is bad. Don’t look at your phone, boy. Please.” He runs his hand through his hair, making what was a perfectly orderly short haircut a ruffled mess. “Who am I talking to here?”
“What awful news?” Confused, Alden looks at his father, checks his jeans pocket for his phone and takes it out but doesn’t look.
“Just wait. Please.” Again he squeezes his son’s shoulder.
“Rafael Navarro,” I tell him.
“I’m Benjamin Somersby.”
He offers his hand and I shake it. I could leave this to stew in his mind, and hope he comes around, though the chances of that are small. On the other hand, I know how the frat board works, how they love getting hooks into new members who have powers they can cobble to their own.
I eye both men, giving the father a chance to say this news he has, but he waits for my answer. Is that pain I see in his eyes whenever he looks at his son?
This situation here needs resolving ASAP. I have to recheck Georgia.
“I can fix this. I can contact a man that you can talk to. He will, I believe, convince you that cleaning this up, all of this”—I sweep my hand out to the side—“is perfectly possible. If we are fucking fast.”
As long as no stray cars, riders, gardeners, or farmers even, or whoever lives around here, don’t decide to use this road. The sign we passed, a half a mile back, read Somersby Estate, and that probably means we are on land Alden’s family owns. All of it for tens of thousands of acres, if I know the Brits.
“I prefer my family to stay out of this sort of furor but we cannot hide that.” He jabs toward the hedge.
Furor? Now I recognize him, from a lobbying meeting my family organized for our company. He’s a sitting member in the House of Lords. Interesting friends, my Georgia has cultivated. She said she was snatched off a road in Australia while out riding her bike?
I can’t help using Alden’s idiotic action as part of my reasoning. “Shooting people in the head when they’re not certified dead is regarded as murder and, yes, I did that too. That said, I know people who will want this quashed. For reasons.” How to say this? “The woman on the other side of this hedge needs to be…”
Kept quarantined slash kept captive slash away from the press. Choose one.
“Surely, she is not our problem?” Benjamin folds his arms.
I lamely add, “She’s special. These people I can phone know you, or some of them do. All I need to do is contact one of them and I feel sure they will convince you that we can and should hide this.”
Now he looks angry, bows his head and rubs his finger back and forth, above his nose. “Okay. Okay.”
Only a little angry. I’m impressed. Most people would be terrified by a stranger with a gun standing before them, after having murdered three people.
“Who then?”
I rattle off three names. The ones he is likely to know. CNC Fraternity board members, all of them.
He sighs, sniffs. When he looks up there’s a measure of respect in his voice that wasn’t present before. “You think…you can get rid of bodies and a destroyed Porsche? And what about the pretty, red-headed woman back there. What if she talks?”
“She won’t,” Alden begins. “Those men were sent by Joseph to kill her and—”
“No, they weren’t.”
“Father.” Alden frowns. “I was informed they were coming by Joseph himself.”
“No, you weren’t.” His voice cracks. “Why would he and besides…” He heaves out a shaky breath. “Joseph has been dead for weeks. He was found floating in the sea off the coast of Spain.”
Now I can see why there is a world of hurt wrecking this man.
“Fuck. No! No!” Alden barks out then steps back, shock in the wideness of his eyes. “How long…how long have you known?” His voice drops to nothing. Clearly, they were close, despite the bad things he said about Joseph on the way here.
“A week.” He walks close to his son then opens his arms and pulls him in close. This is a private moment and I half turn away, giving them space as they hug each other and Alden sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be here that I told you. You!” he snaps and turns his head, frowns at me.
“Yes?”
“Do it. Get me this damn person on the phone."
To Be Red: TBR Copyright © Cari Silverwood 2026
