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He wasn’t a husband. He wasn’t a lover. He was a dead man. And he was about to have company in hell. It was that simple. That was how he had survived for the past six years and. It was how he had rehabilitated, it was how he rebuilt himself.
He was a husband. A lover. And what belonged to him had been threatened. Taken. It woul
dn’t happen again.
Dusk was settling as Noah pulled in, only feet from where the dead agent’s body had been found. Three black-masked shadows waited on four-wheelers at the base of the rise.
Noah kicked the stand on the Harley, turned it off, and dismounted slowly. He stared back at them. None of them were Mike Conrad. But there was Delbert Ransome, those watery brown eyes gleamed like a rat’s. The other two men he identified by the shape of their faces and the color of their eyes. One was a ranch hand from the Malone ranch. The other was the sheriff’s deputy, Hershel Jenkins. Damn. Rory was going to be pissed. He and Hershel had been drinking buddies at one time.
Hershel moved from his four-wheeler and pointed to the small rack behind him. In his hand he carried plastic restraints.
Noah moved to the back of the ATV, slid on, and let the son of a bitch cuff his wrists to the edge of the rack. Seconds later, they were tearing off through the night.
He felt the first electronic skin tag tracker on his left shoulder heat up. It had a five-minute range. Eyes were already watching. He could feel them. The SEALs would be in place. Reno, Clint, Kell, Macey, and Ian. They would have been deployed from the bunker the minute they knew the rendezvous point and they’d be tracking.
Satellite would be trained on the ATVs’ progress. The ATVs’ headlights cut through the darkness, but Noah knew there were others watching as well. Militia members, to make certain there was no backup.
There was plenty of backup.
They’d thought Noah would be taken, not Sabella. The outsider coming in and taking over something it was rumored the militia wanted. That being the garage. He had controlled it, controlled its owner. They hadn’t expected Sabella to be taken.
Noah held on to the rack, braced himself, and flowed with the hard thumps, the deliberately rough ride. These boys thought they knew how to hurt. They didn’t know anything about pain. About madness. About death.
Noah knew. And he knew they had no idea what monster they were bringing into their midst.
The night vision contacts were working, though not as well as goggles would have. The faded green aura of the landscape was clearly visible. He could see another of Gaylen Patrick’s ranch hands in a pickup as they passed it, tucked into the shelter of a small grove of pines.
He saw the shadow behind it and smiled. Yeah, there were a lot of shadows moving in these mountains tonight.
Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty minutes.
Finally, the ATVs turned off into a small canyon and pulled in front of an opening into the base of a nearly sheer cliff.
They hadn’t known about this one. It was perfectly hidden by the brush and bramble in front of it and the ledge of the cliff over it. There was a faint light coming from inside.
The restraints were cut and a rifle shoved in his face as he was pointed to the opening.
How easy it would be to shove the barrel of the weapon up the deputy’s ass while he took out the other two. Silently. It could be done so silently.
He grinned instead and turned, walking into the entrance and waiting for the contacts to adjust as the light deepened. Sabella’s abductors’ precautions against the light showing from the outside allowed the contacts time to adjust until his vision was clear when he turned into the main cavern.
He stepped in, his gaze finding Sabella immediately.
Someone had hit her. Her cheek was bruised, blood still marred her nose. Her gray eyes were dark with anger. And fear.
The cavern was large enough. She was tied to a small cot, her wrists cuffed to the metal frame, though she had been left sitting.
Across the room Mike Conrad grinned back at him. He hadn’t bothered to cover his face. Sienna sat between his splayed legs, playing with the ends of her hair as she stared back at him maliciously.
“All that leather just looks hot,” she drawled. “Come on, Mike, let me make him fuck me before you go hunting. That illegal ass you kidnapped last month did it. His wife cried so pitifully. I want to see Belle cry while her lover fucks me. Just like her husband did.”
Noah had never touched her. There had always been something about Sienna that just put him off. There had been no challenge. No sense of depth.
“Strip.” He shrugged, staring back at her. “I have time if you do.”
Head games. He knew head games.
She pouted and sniffed. “Not on your life. You’re probably diseased after fucking that heifer.” She nodded to Sabella.
