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He now stood in that rubble, afraid to take a step in any direction for fear he would lose the only thing that had ever mattered to him.
Victoria’s family had ensured that he hadn’t been allowed one word in private with Victoria since they had escaped from Falsted’s estate.
Not one word.
While he’d been allowed, begrudgingly, to accompany Lachlan, Wolfbridge, the women and the rest of the Scots to the meeting location with Desmond and Roe, he’d been met at every corner with suspicion and ugly glares. Especially by Wolfbridge.
He was, frankly, surprised he hadn’t been outright shot every morning when he mounted his horse and followed the carriage that held Eva, Torrie and Victoria, his horse falling in line with the rest of the men.
None of them trusted him.
They were smart. He barely trusted himself at this point either.
In watching Roe and Torrie reunite, what Rafe hadn’t been aware of was the force of Desmond’s fist coming at him. A fist that found its way across Rafe’s face once Desmond realized Rafe had been the one that had taken Victoria out of Seahorn and to Falsted’s estate.
Desmond’s fist landed a crushing blow against Rafe’s jaw.
Rafe should have seen it coming. Should have expected it.
“What in the almighty hell were you thinking to take Vicky from Seahorn, you sniveling wastrel of a rat?” In the instant after the brutal blow, Desmond had Rafe by the throat, shoved up against the fieldstone wall in the old farmhouse Desmond and Roe had been camped out in.
Don’t fight it. Don’t fight it.
Rafe knew this would be a gauntlet, getting through Victoria’s family. He’d hoped being a silent presence would buy him a margin of forgiveness.
He’d thought wrong.
Desmond’s fingers ripped viciously into the sides of his throat, but Rafe could still force sound out. “She was protected the whole time.”
“By who? By the likes of your miserable arse?” Desmond’s face pulsated a raging red.
Victoria appeared beside Desmond, her voice low, but shaking in fury. “Father—”
A caustic laugh cut through the stale air in the room. “I know this one.”
All eyes in the room turned toward the man that was currently strung against the far wall of the farmhouse by the fireplace. Each of the man’s wrists were tied by rough rope that stretched his arms wide. Naked from the waist up, his torso was a mess of blood and cuts, his head bobbing about with a sneer as he looked at Rafe and Desmond.
The man had probably been tortured for days in an attempt to pry from him the location of Eva and Torrie.
And in the middle of the man’s head, that distinctive widow’s peak of dark hair Rafe recognized.
The missing fifth man of the Falsted crew that had stolen Eva. Staring straight at him.
Fuck.
“Ye goin’ to help me, yer lordship?” The captive’s scattered focus swung to Desmond, spitting out blood that trailed in a thick line down his chin. “String that one up—he’s one of them that hired us. Get yer answers from that one.”
“What?” The word hissed out of Reiner’s mouth.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rafe saw Victoria next to him, her face paling, her head shaking, the word “no” mouthing from her lips.
“He is. He is, I tell ye.” Falsted’s man shouted, his arms jerking at the ropes binding him up. “Lord Winfred has ye all fooled. Ye fuckin’ idiots.”
Rafe shoved away from Desmond and charged across the room, swinging his fist hard, teeth snapping out of the man as the blow sent his head back into the stone wall. The brute’s head went slack, hanging down as his body went limp, only held up by the ropes.
Dead or not, Rafe didn’t care.
He was the next man dead anyway. May as well take all the refuse with him.
