I swallow thickly, my stomach churning thinking about everything I’ve learned over the past few months and especially today. “They have people in local law enforcement all over the Eastern United States and several FBI agents on their payroll.”
“Fuck.”
That revelation knocks Connor back a step. He rarely, if ever, shows his cards, but he just proved my point.
“The man I met with today? You have no idea how important he is. My key witness. What I need to corroborate what I’m going to put into my story.”
Connor issues a low growl. “There’s not going to be a story.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He takes a step closer. “It means you can’t publish a story about the Lorells.”
“Why the fuck not?”
His gaze burns with an intensity I’ve never seen there before, even during our most heated of arguments. “Because it will unleash holy Hell on us and McBride Mountain.”
“Holy Hell has already been here. You lived it at the hands of the Lorells. This is my job, Connor. To tell the stories no one else will. And this is the biggest story of my life. This affects my best friend, her family, you. If I can get this story out there, make these things public, if I can get a major paper to pick it up and print it because I have proven sources, maybe it will lead to something that could bring them down for good. Maybe the FBI can finally act and that could ensure our safety so that we could all sleep at night.”
He flinches as if I’ve struck him, and a feeling I never wanted to experience when it comes to Connor McBride washes over me.
Sympathy.
“You’re not the only one who has nightmares, Connor.”
I may not have been up on the homestead that night, but I witnessed the fallout and how it affected all the McBrides. Especially the one in front of me. I’ve felt everyone’s anxiety, their pain, I’ve experienced the aftermath enough to realize how awful living through it truly was.
He squeezes his eyes closed. A tense minute passes. Another. When he opens them, there’s a resolve there. “Pack a bag.”
“What?”
“Go pack a bag—a backpack if you have one. Clothes, hair brush, tooth brush and tooth paste, whatever the fuck you’re going to need.”
Panic starts to rise in my chest. “For what?”
Connor’s glare cuts right through me. “You’re coming with me.”
I recoil and retreat a step. “Like fucking hell I am!”
It’s bad enough this man followed me today—and that I was so wrapped up in my story that I somehow missed seeing him there—but now he expects me to go somewhere with him?
“I’m not about to let you sit here and write this story and put all of us in danger.”
I square my shoulders, as if that somehow will do something to stop the very determined man in front of me. “You can’t stop me.”
Another low growl slips from his lips, one that warns me not to try him. “I can and I will. You’re coming with me one way or another. I suggest you do it the easy way.”
6
RAVEN
The moment Connor pulls his truck in front of his cabin on the homestead and puts it into park, I reach for the handle on the door, throw it open, and leap out, slamming it behind me.
Before I can make a break for it toward Willow and Killian’s place, Connor steps out of the truck, snags my computer bag and the hastily packed backpack he forced me to bring, and stands directly between me and my escape path.
I throw up my hands. “This is your big plan? To bring me back to your cabin and keep me locked up here until you can convince me not to write my story?”
For the entire ride up the mountain, I’ve been demanding answers, some sort of explanation for why he’s literally kidnapped me and forced me to come with him, yet this infuriating lumberjack in front of me has been completely silent.
