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Her heart racing out of control, the blood thundering through her veins, Rogue decided there wasn’t much difference. There was an awareness of death hovering, the tingle of hope, the defiance to live. She had to live. She’d be damned if she would let Jonesy hurt her family further.
“You didn’t ask me how I managed to fool your father and everyone else all these years. ” Insidious and filled with hated confidence, Jonesy’s voice threaded through the night again, closer than was comfortable.
“Should I tell you?” he asked her.
Yeah, keep talking, asshole, so I know exactly where you are.
His laughter was low, cruel. “Your father is so grateful to me for warning him of Dayle Mackay’s plans regarding your mother that he doesn’t mind a bit to send me a nice fat check every Christmas. He had no idea it was all a very nicely laid plan to get him the hell out of Somerset. See, your father was a troublemaker and your mother was just too damned high profile to just kill. But it worked out, Rogue. Your father proved to be a nice little resource. Why, the law firm he’s established has even defended several of our members and cleared their good names of the evil acts they committed. He’s a fine man,” he drawled mockingly. “Too bad his daughter isn’t as smart. ”
Yeah, too bad his daughter didn’t fire you when she had the chance. Too bad she didn’t just shoot you.
Rogue slid around the back of the house, her eyes straining to see past the fog as she fought to figure out which way to go, where the best place to hide would be.
“I know where you are, Rogue,” he sang through the night. “Just around the corner, just around the bend. Searching for warmth before your life is set to end. ”
A poet he wasn’t. But he had a point. She was just around the corner. Unfortunately, she didn’t know a damned thing about Zeke’s home other than the fact that the back deck should be within feet of her.
Moving carefully, fighting to stay silent, she managed to find the porch rails. Gripping the wood tightly, she climbed over the banister before hunkering down and feeling her way across the boards.
Would he expect her to be on the porch?
She followed the rails, found the opening that led back out into the yard, and paused there. Her nails dug into the wood as she listened and fought to hear above the racing of her heart. She couldn’t hear Jonesy. Could he hear her? Her heart was like thunder in her ears, her breathing raspy. Fear was an acrid taste in her mouth now as her stomach clenched with panic.
The night itself whispered with dread. The breeze coming off the lake was a hiss of deadly intent. The shift of branches, the creak of the trees. Which was nature, which was a killer waiting to strike?
The fog danced slowly around her, shifting and thickening, thinning and moving through the night with hollow grace. Shadows twisted within the dense mist, came together, then drifted apart, giving her no hint to who was near and who wasn’t.
How could a man of Jonesy’s size move so silently? Surely she would have heard something.
Biting her lip, she remained in place, stiff, still, waiting. Watching. Praying. If only Zeke would get to her in time.
“He has to be bat-shit crazy to think he could get away with this, Zeke. ” Alex sat beside him in the Tahoe as Zeke cut the lights to the truck and made the turn onto the graveled road leading to his house. “He’s a hunter, a fighter. He’s had military training.
Dishonorable discharge for striking an officer though his fellow officers testified that the officer struck first. If nothing else, he’s a tough son of a bitch. If he has Rogue, getting her out won’t be easy. ”
“Rogue will be watching for me. ” He had to believe that. She wasn’t weak; she wasn’t stupid. She would know he was coming for her, no matter how angry she had been when he left.
“Listen to me, none of these men that were in the League are operating with a full deck here,” Alex warned him as he slid ammo into the rifle he carried.
He wore a night-vision device on his head; a handgun was strapped to his thigh.
Dressed in camo with a matching cap covering his hair, the chief of Somerset’s police department looked like the Special Forces soldier he had been six months prior.
Zeke eased the Tahoe over, aware of the other men in the backseat and back cargo area.
They’d loaded up after dragging on gear they’d packed in their own vehicles. The Mackay boys believed in “just in case. ” They kept everything they needed on hand just in case something went from sugar to shit in a heartbeat.
Dawg, Natches, patched but still bleeding, Rowdy, limping but still walking, Cranston, a little worse for wear, but he was in one piece. And Gene. His deputy carried a sniper rifle similar to Alex’s and his expression was as cold and forbidding as Alex knew his own was.
Shutting off the engine, he pulled his weapon from its holster, checked it, then shoved it back in place before taking the extra clips from Alex and shoving them in the large pocket of the dark camo jacket he wore.
“We’re a quarter mile from the house,” he said. “Natches, Rowdy, and Cranston will take the tunnel entrance, Alex, Dawg, and Gene and I will take the two entrances to the house. ” He stared at Gene through the rearview mirror. “You’re with me. ”
Gene nodded, his eyes meeting Zeke’s, his expression tight with controlled anger. They were going to have to deal with each other, and with Cranston when this was over. But for now, nothing mattered but Rogue.
“Maynard, give me that sniper rifle. He’s had time to get here; that means one of us has to be in place to take him out at a moment’s notice,” Natches informed them, his voice rough, dark with the threat of violence as Gene handed him the sniper rifle.
Trusting no one, Natches began breaking it apart quickly and effectively. Within seconds he had it down, checked, and clicking everything back into place as Dawg stored ammo in the pockets of his own jacket.
