Colony World by Tarah Benner

Author:Tarah Benner [Benner, Tarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tarah Benner

17

Maggie

“What did you say?” I stammer, staring at Milt in confusion.

My ears are working perfectly fine, but I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

“I said your friend Jonah is alive. Van de Graaf’s nasty little assistant told me to tell you.”

I shake my head. It doesn’t make any sense. I know that Jonah is dead.

I swallow twice. My mouth has gone dry. I can hardly formulate the words. My tongue doesn’t want to cooperate with my brain. “No . . . That can’t be true.”

“Hey! Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you what I heard.”

I gape open-mouthed. This must be a trick. There’s no way Jonah’s alive.

In that moment, my legs go all wobbly. I feel as though I might throw up.

Jonah can’t be alive. Porter is lying. Jonah died three years ago. I held him in my arms as he uttered his last words. When I left, he was a corpse. He didn’t have a heartbeat.

“That’s impossible,” I mutter. His death haunts my dreams. It still wakes me up in the middle of the night.

“I take it that does mean something to you,” says Milt. He’s been watching me closely this entire time, waiting to see how the news affected me.

“Jonah Wyatt is dead,” I say. “Mordecai killed him.”

Milt opens his mouth and shakes his head as if to say he doesn’t know. He’s just relaying a message, apparently — a message I have no way of verifying.

If Jonah’s alive . . . But he can’t be. Mordecai poisoned him with the drink laced by Jade. Mordecai was supposed to die that day. Instead Jonah drank the deadly concoction, and I had to watch him die.

It’s been three years, but I remember it clearly. The memory is burned in my brain.

Even if he managed to survive, Mordecai would have killed him instantly. Jonah fought the man with everything he had. Mordecai never would have let him live.

Milt is still watching me with a serious expression, and somehow I know he’s telling the truth. He has to be who he says he is. Only someone connected with the Van de Graafs would know Porter Guffrey. Porter has always been a sneaky little shit, but he would have no reason to lie.

“Does this mean you’ll go into hiding?” asks Milt. “I can have you on the Van de Graafs’ private jet in a little over an hour.”

“What?” I’d almost forgotten why I was here. “Someone just beat my friend half to death. I’m not going anywhere.”

Milt sighs as though he expected this and grabs his jacket off the bed. “At least think about getting out of town,” he says.

“I’m not fleeing to Mexico.”

“I didn’t say Mexico,” says Milt calmly. “They have no problem extraditing criminals.”

“I’m not a criminal. And I’m not running.”

“Maybe you don’t understand,” says Milt. “Mordecai Blum is coming after you. Your picture is all over the news. Your world is getting smaller. You need to be smart, or you will die. That is a guarantee.”

But I’ve already checked out from Milt’s dire warnings.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.