Close enough to strike.
“Stay back,”he murmured to Noah. “Whatever happens, dinnae interfere. Unless I’m dyin’.”
“Hector—”
“That’s an order.”
He continued moving,remembering everything his father had taught him about moving unseen through Highland terrain. The voices grew clearer with each step, and he could sense the fear in Gabriella’s responses, the manic edge to her captor’s voice.
Twenty yards.Fifteen. Ten.
And then hecould see them through the trees.
Gabriella,her dress torn and stained with dirt and blood. Beside her was a man Hector recognized with a shock of pure rage.
Lewis.The bastard who’d tried to sell her in the first place.
“…toldye, lass, today I’m going to kill ye,” he sing-songed like a madman. “That Scottish dog thinks he can destroy what I worked to build? Well, we’ll see about that.”
Hector’s visionturned red at the edges. Every instinct screamed at him to charge into the clearing, to tear Lewis apart with his bare hands. But Gabriella was too close to him, and Lewis looked desperate enough to do something fatal if cornered.
Hector neededto be smart about this. Calculated.
But as hewatched Lewis reach down to grab Gabriella’s hair, forcing her head back at a painful angle, something inside him snapped.
A sound escaped his throat—partgrowl, part battle cry—and suddenly he was moving, crashing through the undergrowth like an avenging angel, his dirk gleaming in his hand.
“Get away from me bride.”
23
“Get away from me bride!” Hector growled.
Lewis’s surpriseturned into delight. “Oh, this is perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“I said, let her go,”Hector said, his voice deadly calm.
“Nae a chance.”Lewis pressed the knife against Gabriella’s throat. “Do ye ken what ye did to me?” His voice started as a whisper, but quickly rose to a roar. “Do ye ken what ye destroyed?!”
Noah appeared through the trees,two hands wrapped around his dirk, his face grim with purpose. He raised the blade high over his head, ready to deliver a fatal blow, but Hector raised his free hand, stopping him in his tracks.
“Nay. Step back,”he ordered. “This is personal.”
Noah paused only for a moment,long enough to take in the entire scene, and nodded once before retreating. Hector, however, knew they wouldn’t go far.
He took a step forward,his eyes locked on Lewis.
“I had everythin’!”Lewis growled. “A profitable business, connections that reached from Glasgow to Edinburgh! I was somebody! But then ye decided to play savior!”
His voice dripped with venom.“Ye went after me suppliers! Me contacts! Every man who’d ever done business with me suddenly found themselves with a choice—deal with an angry Scottish laird or step away. I went from being a respected businessman to living like a bloody animal!”
“Ye were never a businessman,”Gabriella spat. “Ye were a monster.”
“Monster?”Lewis’s lip curled. “I provided a service! Until yer precious Laird decided to play God! Now, look what he’s reduced me to!” A mad gleam entered his eyes. “Now, ye have to learn what it feels like to lose something you care about. Just like ye did to me.”
Hector took a single step forward,and Lewis’s lips stretched into a grin.
“That’s it,come closer. I want ye to have a good view when I slit her throat.”
