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“It is him,” I told him, feeling fire burning through my veins and bringing me back to life. Gone was the shock, and in its place, a determination I’d never felt before. He had the woman I loved, and I’d do anything to get her back. “I’ll kill him.”
“I’ll supply the bullet,” Brody ground out. “Get your tracking information up. We need to find her STAT. He’s already had her for ninety minutes.”
I turned around, bringing up the app that her tracker was connected to, and followed the activity over the last two hours. “It’s been stagnant for twenty minutes,” I shouted and placed the coordinates into my cell to see where they were. “It’s a forty-minute drive.”
Brody shook his head and pulled his cell out, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “Suit up. We’re gonna get the chopper.”
* * *
BELLE
“Your son?” I frowned, confused by his words. What did his son have anything to do with me? And he still hadn’t told me who the hell he was and why he’d had me kidnapped. The only saving grace I had was that they hadn’t taken Leo, not that I’d have let that happen in a million years.
“He was a handsome man.” He stared away from me, his tone wistful. “He was learning the family business, showing promise. He was good with numbers, but more than that, good with people. He knew when to be fair, and when to bring down his wrath. He would have been perfect to take the business over. But he went and fell in love.” He laughed, his gaze meeting mine again, and I was sure this guy was high as a kite because he was making no sense.
“Love is the root of all evil, you ever heard that?” He paused, waiting for me to answer, but I had nothing to say. “He came to me and told me he was in love, that he’d met this woman he couldn’t live without.” He clicked his fingers. “But the kicker was, to be with her, he couldn’t be involved in the family business.”
I opened my mouth, about to interrupt him, but he held his hand in the air. His brow raised as if he was making a speech in front of a thousand people and commanded the room. “Now, something you must understand, Miss Easton, is that the business I run was first started by my great-grandfather, who passed it down to his son, who then passed it to his son, and then he passed it to his son—me.” He pointed at his chest and leaned forward in his seat, his gaze spearing me with unknown information.
“And I would pass it down to my son. But the moment he fell in love, it risked all of that, so I had him followed.” He shrugged. “It was the logical thing to do. This girl was threatening tradition, and that is a sacred thing in my family, si?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And I really didn’t.
“Hold still.” He waved his finger in the air. “It’ll all make sense to you soon.” I glanced around the barn, hoping there was a chance out of this, but I counted ten guards just in the time he’d paused. “Where was I? Ah yes, I had him followed.” He chuckled as if he was reliving the memory. “And I found the girl, and then I had her followed. But… Are you listening, Miss Easton?”
I whipped my head around to face him, my eyes widening as the expression on his face changed from bored to pissed off in a nanosecond. I was trying to commit everything to memory on the off chance I could escape. The chance was slim, but there was still a chance. I hoped. “Y-yes.”
“Good.” He brushed off the arms of his suit jacket. “So now I’ve set up the story for you, let me change tactics.” He stood and paced in front of me. “I got arrested for running my business, and of course, I needed my son to take over.” He halted behind his chair and held the back of it. “He didn’t want to take over because he was still infatuated with this girl, but it didn’t matter how many times I showed him my evidence of who she was, he didn’t want to listen.” He took several steps back, dragging the chair with him.
“So I decided to let him have some time. He’d soon come to his senses. And in the meantime, I had trusted men who had been at my back longer than you were alive.” He paused at the wall of the barn and let the chair go. “At least, I thought I had.” He shook his head. “I’d been told a problem, which had put me in jail in the first place, had been taken care of.”
I swallowed as he moved closer to me, each step more foreboding than the last. I saw why these men took his commands. There was a darkness to his eyes that I didn’t want to know about, but now that I was here, alone, I had a feeling I was about to find out more than my fair share.
“Two weeks ago, a new inmate came on my block and told stories of the man who arrested him.” He laughed and moved his arm behind his back. “And would you believe, it was the man who I’d been told was taken care of?” He shook his head and moved his arm, and the glint of metal caught my attention. “Rory?” he called, and one of the guys guarding the barn moved forward.
“Yes, sir?”
Rory? Why did that name sound familiar? My mind was working overtime, and I was trying to put the pieces together, but I was still missing something.
“This is the man, Miss Easton. This is the man who bragged about killing my enemy but, in actual fact, had been fooled.” He turned to face Rory. “Would you like to explain to Miss Easton what happened?”
Rory’s face screwed up, his shoulders high, but he didn’t look at me as he said, “I shot an agent, but they faked his death.”
Agent? He shot an agent. I tried my hardest to keep my expression as neutral as possible, but it was hard because this was the man. This was the man who had shot an agent, an agent I wa
s sure was Ford. Which meant…
Holy shit, this was the man who Ford had been undercover for—the cartel boss. Fuck.
“Precisely.” The boss whipped his arm up, and I realized the glint of metal was a gun. My eyes widened, and my body jerked as he shot off three rounds into Rory’s chest. “That is how you kill a man.”
I swallowed and tried to keep the tears at bay that threatened to fall, but it was no use. The last time I’d seen someone dead—
“Anyway.” The boss stowed his gun away. “Where was I now?” He stared up at the vaulted ceiling. “Right. So, I got arrested, and then I handed all of the information I’d gathered about this girl over to my son, but he didn’t like what he was presented with, so poof. He disappeared. Gone. Determined not to be found.”
His shoes clacked on the floor as he walked closer to me. “But then he made a mistake.” He tutted. “I’d taught him better than that.” He crouched down in front of me. “I sent an order to him to come home and take over the business because I was tired of his insubordination, but he refused because he was too loved up in his little shack.” He paused, his eyes darkening. “Or should I say cabin?”
My heart beat wildly in my chest. What was he saying? What was he—
