Page 107 of Breaking His Exile

River lifted his head. Studied Evander’s face. “That’s the least comforting thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“It wasn’t meant to comfort you.”

A sound escaped River—half laugh, half sob. He pushed off the table. “I’ll get my rifle.”

thirty

The zip tie cut into her wrist every time she breathed too deep, and Rainey had stopped breathing deep ten minutes ago. She sat with her back against the SUV’s rear tire, gravel digging through her jeans, and watched Hobbs watch the road. He stood ten feet away, patient as a spider, his hands loose at his sides and his eyes on the empty stretch of County 14 where the power lines crossed. The sky had gone the color of old dishwater, dawn trying and failing to break through, and the cold had worked so far into her bones she couldn’t remember what warm felt like.

She shifted her weight. The gravel crunched. Hobbs didn’t look at her.

Good.

She’d been working her left wrist against the plastic since Gemma shoved her down here. Small movements. Nothing that would draw attention. The zip tie was tight—Gemma had pulled it hard, taking some satisfaction in that—but not impossible. Rainey had thin wrists. If she could just get them to loosen a little bit, she’d be able to slip free. The plastic edge scraped skin raw, but skin healed. She kept the rhythm steady. Pull, relax, pull, relax, her hand angled to create the smallest gap.

Mal stood near the front of the SUV, phone in his hand, thumbs moving across the screen. He had his father’s build. Broad through the shoulders, the same shaved head—which she knew he kept shaved to hide the gray at his temples. But while he looked like Rux, he lacked the quiet menace. Rux had never needed to perform power. Mal performed it constantly.

God. And she’d once thought he was attractive? He was pathetic.

Gemma paced. She’d been pacing since they arrived, five minutes of restless movement grating on Rainey’s nerves. She kept looking at Mal, waiting for something—approval, instruction, acknowledgment. He gave her none. He’d given her none since they arrived.

Rainey almost felt sorry for the woman.

Almost.

Creed leaned against his motorcycle, arms crossed, his dark hair falling across his face. He hadn’t spoken since they arrived. He watched the ridge line, not the road, and his stillness was different from Hobbs’s. Hobbs was patient. Creed was waiting for something specific.

Rainey’s wrist burned. She kept working it.

They’d left Tilly tied to a pine at the first stop, the County 12 turnout where Gemma had delivered her. Rainey had heard the dog barking as they drove away, a deep, furious sound that cut off when the SUV rounded the bend. She didn’t know if Tilly would chew through the rope or starve to death or if someone would find her. She didn’t know anything except that the dog had tried to follow, lunging against the leash, and Gemma had pointed the gun at her for one heartbeat before Creed said, “Leave it. The dog’s not the job.”

Rainey hoped Tilly chewed through the rope. She hoped the dog found her way back to Valor Ridge and Evander. He’d need her to get through this if Rainey didn’t survive.

She tested the zip tie again. A millimeter of give. Maybe less.

“You know what I don’t understand,” she said.

Hobbs turned his head to glare at her.

Mal looked up from his phone.

Gemma stopped pacing.

Only Creed didn’t move. But his eyes shifted to her, quick, from behind the curtain of his hair.

“I don’t understand,” Rainey continued, “why you think this is going to work out for you.”

She directed it at Mal. He was the one who’d engineered this, who’d sent Gemma to infiltrate her brother’s bed, who’d stood in a clubhouse and put a bullet in Roy Bishoff’s head while she watched and thought she wouldn’t say a fucking thing because she was his possession.

Mal tucked his phone into his jacket pocket and walked over, stopping to smirk down at her. “Everything works out for me, Rainey. You should know that by now.”

Her stomach churned, but she forced a smile as she met his gaze. “Not this time. You know I already testified, right? Recorded deposition. Federal marshal present. Everything I saw. Everything I heard. Roy Bishoff’s books, the laundering, the arms deals, you putting a bullet in a man who’d kept your secrets for fifteen years.” She watched his eyes. “It’s all on tape. So even if you kill me, you’re fucked. You’re going to prison, Mal. You wanted me to use my voice? I used it, and you’re done.”

Gemma moved closer, drawn by the conversation or by Mal’s proximity. Rainey didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes on Mal, watching him process, watching him decide what mask to wear.

He smiled. It was a slow expression, built from the corners of his mouth outward, and it didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re right,” he said. “The testimony will probably survive. I have lawyers—very expensive lawyers—tell me the same thing.” He crouched down, bringing his face level with hers. She smelled peppermint on his breath. “But here’s what else they tell me. Killing you doesn’t erase the testimony. It erases the witness. It makes every lawyer in that courtroom work harder to convict me.” His smile widened. “But it also means Evander Cole walks into this turnout thinking he’s trading his life for yours, and instead he watches you die before we take him apart. It means your brother spends the rest of his life knowing his girlfriend delivered his sister to her death. It means everyone who helped you—Walker Nash, that marshal, the whole bleeding-heart ranch—spends years wondering if they could have done something different.”