Page 299 of Silent Target

Holt scans it quickly, then looks up. “You'll want to look at this one, Dane. It's who's actually paying your invoice. Your retainer didn't come from Ashton's personal accounts. It was routed through an outfit called Pinely Holdings. Pinely Holdings is a subsidiary of the Rotmere Corporation. You know the name?”

Dane's face drops.

“You're not working for a worried father. You're working for the crooks who own his debts, cleaning up a loose end before a merger. So. What kind of firm are you running these days?”

Dane stands in the middle of Main Street for a moment with his eyes closed. “I swallowed it.”

He takes out his phone, and his voice, when he speaks into it, has all the smoothness stripped out. “The Ashton contract, kill it. I'll dictate the report from the road, and flag it for legal, all of it. Yes. Both.” He hangs up and looks at me, and gives me a small, formal nod. “Miss Ashton. I'm sorry. For what it's worth, the report will say the brief was false.”

That’s when the black town car turns onto Main Street. Beside me, Holt goes from still to ready, no visible movement at all, just a change in the air pressure, and Hawk drifts two easy steps to the left. The three of them, mountain man, biker and bodyguard, are spread across the street like a wall.

The town car stops and Corbin gets out alone.

“Juliette.” He doesn't bother with charm now. “Get in the car. The wedding can be salvaged, but only if you come home today and sign, do you understand me? There are people who…”

“Mr. Vance,” Dane says pleasantly, “I'd think very carefully.”

“You're fired,” Corbin snaps at him and then turns to face me. “You have no idea what you've put in motion. Get. In. The car.”

“The answer is no, Corbin. It was no in the church too, but you just never asked me.”

And because he’s stupid, his hand shoots out and closes around my arm, hard, and pulls.

I hear Holt before I see him, a deep growl in his chest that I feel through the soles of my feet. Then there's a blur, no punching or shouts, just Corbin's wrist peeled off my arm and folded up behind his back. Suddenly he’s bent over the hood of his expensive car with his cheek pressed to the frost, gasping, held there by one hand and a knee. Holt isn't even breathing hard. He leans down close to Corbin's ear, and I only catch the end of what he says.

“...touch her again, and there isn't a family on earth rich enough to buy you back. Nod if you understand.”

Corbin nods.

Hawk walks over and crouches down. “Rotmere will be very interested to hear how you’ve been siphoning off their money into your shell companies for the last six years. I hear they make people disappear when they find out about fraud.”

Corbin makes a whimpering sound. “They don’t need to know.”

Holt’s voice is steady. “Then leave Juliette alone. Nobody knows she’s here.”

Corbin nods, his face squished against the car.

“Stay down. It's the best deal you'll get today.”

Somewhere behind me, calm as a woman reporting a pothole, Mary from the inn says into her phone, “Morning, Joe. You'll want to send a car up to the inn. Disturbance up here.”

When the sheriff arrives, he takes Corbin down the mountain in the cruiser. Dane shakes Holt's hand before he leaves. Hawk drinks the coffee Nora brings out, then swings back onto the bike. "Thanksgiving. Me and Taryn’ll be expecting you. Both.”

“Walk me through it,” I say, once Mary’s gone back inside and Holt and I are standing there alone.

He looks down at me. “Through what?”

“All of it. You had a plan this whole time, and I thought you didn’t. I’m sorry for not trusting you.”

He shakes his head. “That works both ways. I should have told you sooner, but I was worried I’d put you in more danger, or you’d run. There's a tracker on the phone I gave you. I’ve had eyes on you the whole time you’ve been here.”

I stare up at him. “Here's my one rule, Holt Newell, trust me. Tell me what the plan is, okay?”

“It’s a deal.”

“Now kiss me, and take me home.”

He kisses me right there on Main Street, one arm wrapping me clean off the sidewalk, and I forget everything else for a long time.