“She fucking stabbedme, asshole. I wasn’t going to hurt her.” Sanders growls over his shoulder and clamps his hand over the bleeding gash in his leg.
“Shut the fuck up.” Rhys snarls at him. “You mean like you didn’t hurt Swan?”
“Fuck you.” Sanders snaps back at him. “I never wanted to be a part of this in the first place.”
“Oh, yeah? What does it take to get an agent to turn coat these days?” Rhys grits through his teeth.
Sanders takes a deep breath. “Dunn caught me fudging fucking numbers on my reports and skimming some of the money in evidence, told me I had to help him or he’d report me with his own set of charges.”
“You thought killing another agent was better than going to fucking jail?” Rhys yells in disbelief.
“The kind of jail Dunn threatened to send me to? With the charges he said he would fabricate? I would be a dead man, anyway.”
“I’ve always thought you were one stupid motherfucker, Sanders. Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head.” Rhys tells him, his arm a tight vice around my waist.
Thunder rumbles loud over us and within seconds lightning flashes across the sky, lighting up the entire room. Sanders slowly lowers himself to his knees and puts one hand on his head while holding the other over his thigh.
Keeping his eyes on Sanders, he says, “Baby, are you okay to walk by yourself?” He sounds like an agent, his voice is sharp and commanding.
“Yes, I can get my crutches from the living room.”
“Good girl. Do you think you can walk to the big house by yourself to get Mason and Jax? And then stay there with your dad.”
I look at Sanders as I nod. “Yeah, I can do that.”
He grabs my nape and crashes his lips to mine, his eyes still on Sanders. His voice softens, and he briefly looks over my face. “Please be careful and take your time so you don’t fall. Okay?”
Nodding, I throw my arms around his shoulders and hug him to me, his arm tightens around my waist. Letting him go, I hobble to the living room and get my crutches from wherewe left them last night and go to the front door.
As I step onto the porch, I hear Rhys telling Sanders to get on his stomach. The wind blows loose strands of my hair across my face, and thunder rumbles overhead again. As I slowly move down the steps, lightning lights up the yard, and I slowly walk the little path I’ve walked in every type of weather toward the house.
When I get around the corner of the garden, large raindrops start to patter around me, bouncing off the large leaves of all the different vegetables in the space next to me, and spatter on my head and shoulders. Another bolt of lightning flashes, and I see a figure standing on the path in front of me. He’s not someone I know.
And he’s holding a gun.
He’s an older man with thinning hair, and he’s looking at me like I’m a bug to be squashed.
He steps closer to me. “Do you have any idea how much fucking trouble you’ve been?” His angry voice sounds familiar, too.
Where have I heard that voice?
“You walked outside that night, and it’s been a domino effect, two years of work ruined.”
The tone of his voice reminds me of something. Oh! The voice of the man that drones on and on during the meetings that Swan listens to.
Oh, my God!
It’s Rhys’ boss!
The house is behind him in the distance, on the other side of the barn. Looking over his shoulder, I wonder if I could somehow get past him… But I can’t run.
Fuck!
Maybe I can stall him while I think of what I can do. “How was I supposed to know some lowlife, wannabe-drug-dealerplants for the FBI were outside playing games?”
“There’s nothing ‘wannabe’ about it, sweetheart, there’s much more money in drugs than there is in an honest living.” He snarls the word sweetheart.
A light coming on in a window at the big house gets my attention. It’s Hallie’s room. Could she hear me from here if I screamed?
