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Wrath rushed through my veins, a stampede that trampled all reason and sight.
I quieted my steps as I pushed through the disturbance that clotted the air, crouching lower as I came upon an area that was more overgrown than the others. Shrubs rose up to create what looked to be an unkempt fence line.
The beats of my heart turned jagged.
Spikes of frenetic energy that pumped.
There was an opening where a gate had likely once stood, and all the oxygen fled from my lungs when I peered inside to the flattened plot of ground.
In the middle of it was a tattered shack, long deserted, the roof caved in on one side and the railings of the porch splintered and sagging. The glass was shattered from one window.
Small cries emanated out.
Clawing through the thickened air in a despairing plea.
Voices intoned beneath Evelyn’s whimpers, hushed, painted in their own oppression, though wisped in a faulty hopefulness.
Feigned.
Paisley.
“He is a total jerk, isn’t he? Let’s go. You, Evelyn, and me. Right now. Let’s go. Leave this place.”
I could feel the way every word shook from her tongue.
I pulled my gun from the holster, inhaling as I flicked off the safety then cocked it. I edged through the break in the foliage, gun in two hands, each step careful and quieted. I tried to control my breaths that hacked in and out, cleaving gasps that sent shockwaves of fury palpitating ahead of me.
I eased closer, trying to conceal my footsteps as I stepped onto the crumbling porch and to the door.
I inclined my ear to the wood.
“Okay. We’re gonna have to take care of Greyson first, though.”
Fear saturated through.
And I knew I couldn’t sit idle. Every second that passed only put them at greater risk.
I reared back and kicked it in.
It clattered open. Dust billowed, kicking up a grimy haze. Through it, my eyes darted, calculating everything.
Evelyn was on the left. Bound and facing the opposite wall.
Paisley and Nate were on the right. He’d been crouched in front of her, but in a flash, they both were standing, the fucker using Paisley as a shield as he jerked her back to his chest.
A blade was pressed to her throat.
Relief gushed out of Paisley when she saw me.
And for the flash of a second we were held.
Held in understanding.
Then she shouted, “Caleb, get Evelyn and run!”
“Knew you’d come,” Nate snarled from behind her in some kind of twisted triumph, ignoring Paisley’s shout.
“I’m right here,” I told him.
My gun was angled down toward the floor, ready to take the shot when he gave me the opportunity.
Tears tracked down Paisley’s face, those mossy eyes dampening in a plea.
Go.
She was willing to sacrifice herself for Evelyn.
My perfect, reckless angel.
My chest tightened, words grinding out as I forced myself to look at Nate. “You were waiting on me? So why don’t we hash this out? Man to man. Only a pussy would draw women into it.”
I refused the flash of my sister’s face, refused the agony, focused on taunting this bastard into doing what I needed him to do.
Because I needed him to let my girls go.
They had to be safe.
They had to be.
His laughter was riddled with disbelief. “You thought you were just going to take her from me?”
He’d wanted Paisley.
I’d known it.
I just hadn’t known there was a psychopath behind it.
“Paisley doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Incredulity dripped from his snort. “I’m not talking about Paisley, though it’s clear you wanted her, too. I’m talking about Evelyn.”
Evelyn?
At the sound of her name, Evelyn whimpered.
I wanted to run to her.
Cover her ears.
Shield her from the fear and pain.
“Your sister tried to keep her from me, now you. You Greysons think you get to run the world, don’t you? Keep a man from his child? She paid for it, too. Now you’re going to.”
Chaos whipped.
A storm through my mind.
What was he talking about?
What was he saying?
“She didn’t even tell you who Evelyn’s father was, did she? Bitch thought she could keep me a secret except for when I found her running back to your office that night like you were going to protect her from the fate she earned. She wasn’t going to get away with it, and neither are you. I’ve come to take back what’s rightfully mine.”
That time Paisley whimpered, and she mouthed, Get Evelyn.
While the mayhem spun. Spun and spun through my mind.
The realization catching up.
He’d killed my sister because he was Evelyn’s father.
But why my Director of Project Management? Why my corporate attorney?
“Kimberly was nothing but a slut, and I sure was hoping Paisley here wasn’t, but it looks like it to me. Did you fuck him?”
He shook her violently then.
Delirium oozed from his pores, insanity in the tip of the blade piercing her flesh.
Paisley cried out, whimpering as she succumbed, fully leaning back against him as tears tracked down her face.
