The deputy was still alive, eyes blinking, breath coming in short, shallow pulls while black-red blood pooled beneath him.
“You old idiot,” Ollie muttered, crouching over him and digging something out of McCoy’s pocket.“You had one goddamn job, an’ instead you leave me with fuckin’ three.”
He grabbed the knife still lodged in his throat and wrenched it free.McCoy made a wet, choking sound that didn’t fully form before Ollie shoved the blade back in, lower this time, off to the side.
McCoy jerked once, then went slack, blood spilling faster as Ollie pulled the blade loose and tossed it aside.
“Put these on.”
A pair of silver handcuffs swung into view.
“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Ollie continued.“I don’t wanna shoot you…but I will.”
Numbly, Cassie did as he said, clicking them into place around her wrists, wincing as the metal bit into her burned skin.She forced them closed another notch.
Satisfied, Ollie straightened and steered her forward again.Kicking the front door shut as they passed, he marched her toward the root cellar opening and shoved her onto the first rung.Cassie fumbled for it with her foot, her cuffed hands useless in front of her.He didn’t slow—kept her moving, one misstep from losing her footing the entire way down.
Pausing beside Maya’s body, Ollie nudged her with the toe of his boot.“Solves one problem,” he muttered.
Then he hauled Cassie across the packed dirt toward the far side of the cellar.At first glance, the wall looked solid—rough boards backed by packed earth.
But when he pressed against a narrow seam between two planks, one of the boards gave loose.Hooking his fingers into the edge, he slid the board aside, revealing a narrow gap into the darkness behind it.
His hand clamped onto her arm again, shoving her forward.“Move.”
Behind them, the board slammed back into place with a dull thud.
Darkness.
Nash was peering into the dark of an old stone well when his phone buzzed in his pocket.The place was one of several forgotten properties tied to the McCoys, scattered deep through the hills.
He answered as he headed toward his truck, jerking his chin for Boone to follow.
“Talk to me, Crush.”
“We got McCoy.”
Nash slowed a fraction.“Cassie?”
There was a pause before Crusher replied.“You just need to get here, boss—I’m sendin’ a pin.”
The line cut.A second later his phone chimed.
Nash looked at the screen, then over at Boone.“Let’s move.”
Boone didn’t say a word on the drive out.Didn’t tell him to slow down as the truck tore through mud and undergrowth, fishtailing over deep ruts and half-erased trails swallowed by the trees.He barely saw where they were going anyway.His mind kept locking on the same thought over and over—Cassie hurt.Cassie dead.Cassie gone before he got there.
The final stretch cut through a narrow opening hidden behind saplings and deadfall—so overgrown Nash nearly missed it even with the pin guiding him in.
The bikes came into view before the cabin, parked crooked across a semi-overgrown clearing.Engines off, the men stood where they’d stopped, waiting.
Nash was out of the truck before it was fully parked, leaving it running as he cut across the yard.He shoved past Sarge and through the open door—then stopped short at the sight of blood pooled dark across the floor.
McCoy lay in the middle of it, legs half folded beneath him, eyes fixed on the ceiling.A bloody knife sat discarded nearby.
Behind him, Sarge said, “Dead blonde down below.Maya, I’m guessin’.”
Nash turned his head just enough.“Cassie?”
