The Last Time I Cried Your Name novel Chapter 414

Petty was frozen in the darkness, her skin prickling, her ears buzzing with the rush of her own blood. Every thud of her heart echoed loud in her chest, almost deafening her to everything else.

Thump... Thump... Thump.

She could still hear that voice from earlier, the one that sounded just like Jay, calling Abbot “Otto.”

Petty had done her homework on Abbot. She knew he’d grown up on the border, back when the local boss was a man named Travis. As one of Travis’s guys, he hadn’t even had a name then. Travis just called him Otto. When Travis died, “Otto” rebranded himself as Abbot, but the old name had already stuck, and pretty soon, everyone on the border started calling him Otto out of respect.

But for Jay to use that name? It made no sense. On the surface, Jay was Franco’s assistant and bodyguard, but their relationship was more like brothers. Franco brought Jay back with him to Cabinda after leaving the military, and Petty had once asked Jay about it. He’d just said that Franco saved his life after he was badly wounded while working as a mercenary. Jay would never betray Franco. No way that voice was really his. Still, it sounded so much like him that for a moment, she’d almost believed it.

And Laura? Petty had heard Abbot take a call that said Laura was safe, so her being here wasn’t strange. But how had she gotten up this steep, wild mountain path? Had the Jay-sounding guy carried her up there?

There wasn’t any time to figure it out. The rustling in the bushes was getting closer, moving right toward her.

She held her breath and started backing away, moving as quietly as she could. One hand gripped a tree trunk, her other hand reaching behind for another tree to steady herself as she slipped farther into the shadows. Every step, she made sure her shoes touched nothing that might snap or crunch underfoot. As soon as she brushed up against a branch, her foot shifted away as fast as possible.

She took two careful steps back, reaching behind her again for another rough tree trunk... but her fingers brushed against something that was definitely not bark. It was soft. Fabric.

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