Free Dance or Die (White Oak - Mafia Series Book 3) by Liza O'Connor

stomach. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?”
    “Not going to lie to you. Steel looked bad.”
    “My father never planned to let them go.”
    “Nope. Benito would never leave a tortured victim or a witness.”
    “Which means the doctor would have died, too.”
    “As soon as Benito had his answer, which I explained to Doc when I pulled him over before he reached the barn. His one and only chance to live was to do exactly what I told him to do. Thankfully, he did his part to perfection. Otherwise, I feared we’d have lost you. The Secret Service was only concerned about saving Steel and Dan while the Feds wanted to take Benito alive. Neither gave a damn about you.”
    “Until you tried to drive off with me,” she muttered.
    “Sometime today, probably this evening when you are tired beyond endurance, they’ll show up at the hospital to question you, and they aren’t going to play nice.”
    “What have I done?”
    “Not a damn thing, but they can’t get beyond the fact that you’re Benito’s daughter. So they’ll question you as if you are guilty of all his sins.”
    She pressed her head against the window. Even now, her father still tormented her.
    “There are several things they do not need to know about, and some things they do. I retract my request that you don’t tell anyone about your tortured workers. They’ll need to know that. You can even mention I asked you not to share that with Dan.”
    He pulled out some folded papers from his inside vest pocket. “However, you can’t tell them that Benito made you sign these.”
    She opened up the papers. It was the three documents she’d signed to prove her obedience.
    “I guess my attempting to prove my obedience to him would not be perceived in a good light.”
    “Not to them. However, if it matters, I knew exactly what you were doing, and in my opinion, it saved the day. Because of your apparent capitulation and your insistence that you were still untouched and valuable property to be bartered, Benito called the doctor and told him to come to Grady’s barn. Until then, we had no clue where you were.”
    “Could you try and explain that to them?”
    “They don’t listen to a damn word I say. So I’m advising you. Don’t tell them about these papers. In fact, you might want to burn them while I stop and get us something to eat.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “I understand. However, you need to keep your strength up. Not just to stand up to the grueling interrogation you’re going to face, but for Steel. If he lives, it’ll be because of his love for you.”
    His words shocked her. “You don’t think he’s going to live.”
    “Actually, I do. But when giving up to death seems the easier choice, he’ll need you at his side pulling him to the hard and painful path of life.”
    Could she do it? Did Steel love her enough to choose pain over death? They’d fallen hard for each other, but it had only been two weeks. Was their love enough to defeat death?
    An hour into the drive, the sheriff pulled off the highway and parked on the side of Jack’s Super Sandwiches. He nodded toward a wire trash basket. “That would be a good place to drop the burning pages. Wouldn’t want to start a brush fire.”
    He placed a lighter on the dashboard and got out of the car without asking her what she wanted. Didn’t matter because all she wanted was for Steel and Dan to get well. She opened the door and almost stumbled when getting out. Her legs could barely function. She walked over to the trashcan, and then realized she’d forgotten the lighter the sheriff had provided.
    She really did need to eat. Her brain was barely functioning. She hurried back to the pickup, retrieved the lighter from the dashboard, and returned to the trashcan. Setting the far edge of the papers on fire, she continued to hold them until the heat of the flames forced her to drop the tiny remnant. She watched as the remaining paper blacken and curl before disintegrating into a small black