Knox only wished he could have done the same for Leni.
If it were in his power, he’d remove every pain she had ever endured and shield her from any in the future.
Tonight, however, he’d have to make do with cold vengeance.
He slowed the vehicle, tires crunching in the rutted snow and ice as he approached the closed gate in front of the Parrishes’ home and business. The big house glowed peacefully in the winter darkness, warm yellow light spilling out from behind curtained windows.
One of the Parrishes—a man too young to be the family’s patriarch and too short and thin to be Dwight—worked outside near the adjacent lumberyard. He stood on the broad side of a tractor trailer loaded with fresh-cut timber, evidently checking that the cargo was secure. His breath steamed under the pool of illumination pouring down from a pair of flood lights mounted on the outbuilding.
He glanced over his shoulder, peering through the distance at the SUV now waiting at the gate. The man’s hand went up, a welcoming wave for what he apparently presumed was the lethal Hunter returned from his mission.
Well, he was half-right.
Knox smiled behind the dark-tinted glass of the windshield. He flashed the high-beams in reply, then watched as Travis Parrish’s brother jogged into the outbuilding and hit a button that operated the gate remotely.
The metal grate slowly swung open.
Knox drove through, a growl rumbling in his chest.
As skilled and experienced as he was, he had never particularly relished the act of killing.
Tonight he would make an exception.
CHAPTER 27
Knox had barely been gone an hour, but the waiting felt like an eternity.
The fact that Riley had no memory of the attack made the entire ordeal somewhat more bearable for Leni, but nothing would ever erase her grief over Carla’s death.
Or her worry for Knox.
He had to be back in Parrish Falls by now. She knew he was alive. She felt his vitality like a balm through their bond. She also felt the coldness of his fury, and Leni almost pitied the men who’d found themselves on the receiving end of it tonight.
Almost.
The Parrishes had earned every bit of Knox’s wrath for what they did to Carla.
Leni’s veins boiled when she thought of her friend’s final moments of fear and suffering. Carla had lost her life simply for being Leni’s friend. Despite Knox’s effort to assuage her guilt, she didn’t know how she would ever forgive herself for putting her friend in the crosshairs of her war with the Parrishes.
As for Riley, he was still at the center of that battle.
Now more than ever, after Travis’s murder.
And when she considered the possibility that the innocent little boy might have fallen into that family’s hands tonight, her blood seethed with outrage. If not for Knox’s lethal skills and the enhanced strength of her ability thanks to the bond she shared with him, Riley would be long gone.
Instead, he sat on the large sectional playing with Fred and a shoebox of action figures he’d found in one of the bedrooms.
Leni had hurriedly cleaned up the great room while Riley slept off the effects of the mind scrub Knox gave him before he left the safe house. The bloodied rug was rolled up and stashed in another room. The broken debris from the smashed coffee table was swept away.
Riley had lost interest in the movie they’d been watching before the attack, so Leni had turned on a local news station instead. She kept the volume low, just enough to chase away the silence of the big, empty Darkhaven.
Sitting beside him while he played, she couldn’t resist reaching out to brush some of the pale blond hair from his brow. He was so much like Shannon. Bright and funny, a charming little imp with her sister’s big blue eyes and silky hair.
It hurt to see him growing up without her.
And as much as she grieved for Carla, part of her heart would always mourn Shannon too.
All the things her sister would never see, never know about her wonderful son.
