He was going to do it.
She backed away, easing toward the couch so that she could drop and have some sort of cover. “You still have a chance,” she told him. “Don’t—”
“You’re the only one who knows the truth about me.”
He watched her with the unflinching gaze of a snake, ready to strike.
Sydney shook her head. “No.” Then she dropped her own mask. Let the fear slide away and let her own fury burst free. “The EOD knows, too. Logan, Cale and Gunner? They’ve been listening to every single word that you said. And guess what? You’re in their sights now.”
Eyes widening in shock, he swung back toward the window. Sydney dived behind the couch.
“No!” Slade screamed.
* * *
“YES,” GUNNER WHISPERED.
Slade whirled from the window and lifted his gun toward the couch.
Gunner’s finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew through the window, shattering the glass, and slammed into Slade.
One shot.
The man staggered, then tried to aim again.
Gunner fired once more.
Even as that second bullet found its target, Gunner saw Logan burst into the den. Logan raced toward Slade as the man slumped to the floor.
Over.
Because he’d just put two bullets into his own brother.
* * *
“CLEAR!” LOGAN YELLED.
Sydney rose from behind the couch. Slade was on the floor, with Logan over him. There was blood, a lot of it, and she hurried toward the men.
Slade’s eyes were open. He was glaring up at Logan, even as Logan held his gaze and his gun right on the other man. “You’re being taken in,” Logan told him. “We’ve got your confession recorded. You’re not getting away.”
Slade clenched his teeth. “I...I’m not going in! I won’t—”
“You don’t have a choice,” Logan growled. Then he talked into his transmitter. “We need that ambulance. Send the EMTs through.” He leaned over Slade. “The wounds aren’t fatal. You’ll stand trial for what you’ve done. Muerte won’t survive—”
“You think...I’ll...roll on the cartels? They’d kill me...”
The front door flew open. Sydney glanced up. Gunner was there, racing toward her.
He grabbed her in his arms and held her tight. She could feel the thunder of his heartbeat against her chest. “You’re making me lose too many years of my life,” he muttered.
Not anymore. The nightmare was over. He was clear. Slade was contained. It was over.
An ambulance’s siren roared outside.
“The big hero...” Slade groaned. “You think this...is how you stop...me?”
Gunner lifted his head but didn’t ease his hold on Sydney. “You’re my brother.” He shook his head. “How the hell did you wind up like this? I was there for you when we were growing up, keeping you safe, making sure—”
“Sure that I was in your shadow.” Slade heaved up. Blood pulsed from his wounds. “No...more.”
Gunner’s body was as hard as a rock against hers. She could only imagine the pain that he had to feel. His own brother had been setting him up, willing to let Gunner spend his life in jail.
The siren kept wailing outside. The EMTs had been kept close, as a precaution, and in moments, they were rushing inside her house.
Logan eased back a step so that they could get to their patient. Logan had already taken Slade’s gun and bagged it for evidence.
But when the EMT reached for Slade, Slade’s body started convulsing. His eyes rolled back in his head. He jerked and twisted. The EMT swore and leaned over him.
That was the moment when Slade yanked out the backup weapon from the holster on his ankle. He moved so fast—so very fast—and had that weapon at the EMT’s head in seconds.
Everyone froze.
Everyone...except Slade and his hostage.
Even as the blood darkened his shirt, he rose to his feet. Slade yanked the young EMT up, keeping the man in front of him. “Drop your guns,” Slade ordered, “or I will put a bullet into his head right now.”
Gunner stepped in front of Sydney, shielding her with his body. He didn’t drop his weapon.
“Drop it, hero,” Slade snarled. “Or watch him die.”
“P-please...” the man begged.
She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear his fear. The tension in the room weighed down on them all. She heard the shuffle of footsteps. Slade and his hostage, backing up a bit.
Backing up...and that retreat would put them right in front of her broken picture window.
Was Cale still positioned on the other side of the house? Or had he moved? She hadn’t been hooked in to their transmissions, and she didn’t know if he’d been repositioned when Gunner rushed inside.
Her palms were sweating, her heart racing too fast.
“I’m not going to...jail...” Slade said. “And sorry, brother, but you’re not getting...the girl....”
Her hands grabbed for Gunner because she knew Slade was about to take the shot. “No!” Sydney screamed.
The blast of gunfire shook the room.
But Gunner didn’t fall.
“Syd...ney...”
Slade’s voice.
Gunner rushed forward, and she saw that Slade had been hit again, only this time, this time she knew the wound was fatal. Slade’s skin was ashen, his eyes barely staying open. The EMT had lurched away from him, and Gunner had caught his brother’s body just as Slade fell.
Sydney glanced toward the window. Another bullet hole had broken the glass.
Cale.
Protecting his team.
“Slade?”
She glanced back at Gunner’s voice. He was curled over Slade’s body holding his brother’s hand.
Slade seemed to be trying to stare up at him.
Two brothers.
“Can we...go in the woods...?” Slade’s voice. Weak with pain, sounding lost. “I want to go...with you...Gun...”
She saw Gunner’s throat move as he swallowed.
“Is...Grandpa comin’?”
Slade didn’t sound like a man anymore. More like a lost child. Maybe in those last moments, he was.
“Grandfather’s already waiting for you,” Gunner said, his own voice rumbling. “Go on to the woods. Stay with him. I’ll join you later.”
“P-promise...?” Slade’s breath rushed out. His chest stilled.
Gunner’s hand clenched around his. “I promise.”
Sydney wrapped her arms around Gunner and held him as tightly as she could.
* * *
THE GRAVE WOULDN’T be empty this time. Gunner stood, silent, during the service as his brother was put to rest. Sydney was by his side, her small hand cradled in his. Logan was on his right. The friend who’d never doubted him. The friend who’d always be there.
Jasper Adams had come to the service, too. The ex-EOD agent waited across from Gunner. Jasper’s wife, Veronica—Cale’s sister—had her arm curled around his waist.
And Cale...he watched the proceedings just as silently as Gunner.
When Gunner had taken his shots, he’d tried to keep his brother alive.
When Cale had fired, there had been no choice. To save Gunner, he’d had to take the kill shot.
But Cale still looked at him with guilt in his eyes. He shouldn’t do that. Gunner would have to talk to him soon, have to make the other man realize—
I understand.
The service ended. The small group walked away, all but Gunner and Sydney. They lingered for a moment. He looked at the flowers. Thought about his brother. “I want to remember him the way he was, back when we were kids.”
Going for hikes in the woods.
Once, Slade had loved those hikes as much as Gunner had.
Once.
“Then remember him that way,” Sydney whispered. “Remember him happy. Remember the good parts.”
He glanced over at her. Sweet Sydney. His saving grac
e.
“Remember the love, and push everything else away.”
He bent toward her and rested his forehead against hers. “I love you.” He’d told her before, but he needed to say the words again. He wanted to say them, over and over.
Her soft hand slid over his jaw. “And I love you.”
A gift. One he’d always treasure, just the way he treasured her.
His head lifted. He cast one last look toward his brother’s casket.
Remember the love. Push everything else away.
“Enjoy your walk in the woods, brother. One day, maybe I’ll see you again.”
Until then, he’d be walking with Sydney. With the children they had on the way. He’d remember the love, he’d show those children so much love...
And with Sydney, he knew they’d be happy. He’d prove that he could be a good father. A father his children would be proud to have.
They turned away from the grave. The sunlight was so bright. It chased away the shadows, and it showed him the hope that waited. With Sydney. With his friends.
With the life that would be. All he had to do was just reach out and take that life. Just reach out...
He turned Sydney in his arms, held tight to her and kissed her.
And he knew he’d found his perfect home.
Epilogue
Getting called into the big boss’s office couldn’t be a good thing. Cale squared his shoulders and swung open the door that would take him into Mercer’s inner sanctum.
Mercer glanced up, no expression on his face, and waved Cale toward him. “Have a seat.”
Right. Nodding quickly, Cale took the offered seat.
Mercer’s fingers drummed on his desk. “It seems that you’re working out quite well as a member of the Shadow Agents.”
“Sir, they’re a good team.” Good people. But taking that shot, taking out Gunner’s brother...that shot was going to haunt him.
Every death did.
“And you’re a good asset to that team. Cool under fire, determined and willing to do whatever’s necessary for the mission.”
Cale stiffened. He didn’t like that “whatever’s necessary” part.
“So I think you’re going to be the perfect man for a very special assignment.”
Cale leaned forward.
“It’s an assignment that has the highest priority at the EOD.” Intensity deepened Mercer’s voice. “I want a man on this case, a guy I can trust one hundred percent.” He stopped drumming his fingers and pointed at Cale. “Are you that man?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d better be,” Mercer muttered. “Son, you’d damn well better be...because if you fail on this mission, if anything goes wrong, I will make you regret it the rest of your life.”
Cale managed to keep his expression neutral, with a whole lot of effort.
“Are we clear?”
Cale nodded.
“Good.” Mercer flashed a smile that Cale was sure had made plenty of men shudder in fear. “Then get your bags packed, because you’re going to Rio.”
* * *
THE DOOR CLOSED behind Cale Lane. An interesting man. A dangerous man.
A man who’d better be the right choice for this mission.
Mercer opened his drawer. Carefully he pulled out the file for this case. He flipped through the dossiers, then paused when he saw her picture.
Cale had better be the right choice.
Because if this mission went wrong, if anything happened to his daughter...
“I will make you regret it the rest of your life.” Cale had no idea just what hell he’d bring down on him.
Because Mercer never made threats.
Just promises.
* * * * *
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Chapter One
Winter had come to Bitterwood, Tennessee, roaring in on a cold, damp wind that poured down the mountain passes and shook the remnants of browning leaves from the sugar maples, sweet gums and dogwoods growing at the middle elevations. Delilah Hammond remembered well from childhood the sharp bite of an Appalachian November and dressed warmly when she headed up the winding mountain road to her mother’s place on Smoky Ridge.
Reesa Hammond was on day three of her latest hop on the sobriety wagon, and withdrawal had hit her hard, killing her appetite and leaving her shaking, angry and suffering from a persistent headache no amount of ibuprofen seemed to relieve. Frankly, Delilah was surprised her mother had bothered trying to stop drinking at all at this point, since her previous eight attempts at sobriety had all ended the same way, five fingers deep in a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
Delilah didn’t kid herself that this time Reesa would win the battle with the bottle. But Reesa had taken a hell of a lot of abuse trying to protect Delilah and her brother, Seth, from their sick creep of a sperm donor, so a little barley soup and a few minutes of company wasn’t too much to offer, was it?
Her cell phone beeped as she turned her Camaro into a tight curve. She waited until the road straightened to answer, aware of how dangerous the mountain roads could be, especially at night with rain starting to mix with sleet. “Hammond.”
“Just checking to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.” The gruff voice on the other end of the line belonged to a former leatherneck named Jesse Cooper, the man who’d been her boss for the past few years, until she’d given her notice two weeks earlier.
“I haven’t,” she answered, tamping down the doubts that had harassed her ever since she’d quit the best job she’d ever had.
“You’re overqualified.”
“I know.”
“You’re no good at small-town politics.”
“I know that, too.”
“You should have held out for chief of police, at least.”
She grinned at that. “Talk about small-town politics.”
“I can keep the job open for a month or two, but that’s it. Our caseload’s growing, and I can’t afford to work shorthanded.”
“I know. I appreciate the vote of confidence in me, but I’m ready for a change.” She tried not to dwell on just how drastic a change she’d made in the past two weeks. Going from a global security and threat assessment firm to a detective on one of Tennessee’s tiniest police forces was turning out to be a shock to the system even she hadn’t anticipated.
She still wasn’t sure why, exactly, she’d decided to stick around Bitterwood, Tennessee, after so many years away. She only knew that a few weeks ago, when the time had come to go back to work in Alabama after an extended assignment in her old hometown, her feet had planted firmly in the rocky Tennessee soil and refused to budge. She’d returned to Maybridge just long enough to work out her two-week notice, talk her landlord into letting her break her long-term lease and gather up her sparse belongings. Two days ago, she’d moved into a rental house off Vesper Road at the foot of Smoky Ridge. In a week, she’d start her new job with the Bitterwood Police Department.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything else about Adam Brand?” she added as the silence between her and her former boss lingered past comfort.
“Nothing yet. We have feelers out. I know you’re worried.”
“Not worried,” she denied,
though it was a lie. “More confused than anything. Going AWOL is not an Adam Brand kind of thing to do. And there’s no way in hell he’s a traitor to this country. It’s not in his DNA.”
“Your brother still won’t tell you anything more about the work he did for Brand?”
“I don’t think Seth knows anything more,” Delilah said. “He didn’t ask a lot of questions, and Brand’s not one to shoot off his mouth.” Even when a few well-chosen words might do him a world of good, she added silently.
“Isabel and Ben have both been trying to reach him, but they’re not having much luck. They didn’t keep in close touch with Brand after leaving the bureau.”
“It happens.” Delilah ignored the stinging pain in the center of her chest. “I’ve got to go. I’m taking soup and sympathy to my mom. She’s on the wagon again.”
“Oh.” She could tell by Jesse’s careful tone that he wanted to say something encouraging, but he’d been around for three or four of her mother’s last brief flirtations with sobriety and knew better than to dish out false hope. “I hope she makes it this time.”
“Yeah, me, too. Say hi to everyone. And call me if you get any news about Brand. I don’t think this Davenport case is really over yet, and he seems to know something about it.”
“Will do.” Jesse hung up.
The Davenport case was at least part of the reason she’d stuck around Bitterwood. Two months earlier, the murders had started—four women found stabbed to death in their beds, though they’d clearly been killed elsewhere. A Bitterwood P.D. detective named Ivy Hawkins had made the first clear connection between the murders—all four women had been friends with a woman named Rachel Davenport, whose dying father owned Davenport Trucking in Maryville, Tennessee, a town twenty minutes from Bitterwood.
When Ivy had caught the murderer, he’d admitted he’d been hired to kill the women. With his cryptic dying words, he’d hinted the killings had everything to do with Rachel Davenport, as Ivy had suspected. Someone had wanted to torment Rachel until she broke, and only after several close calls had the police discovered a struggle for control of Davenport Trucking was at the heart of the campaign of emotional torture.