Page 365 of Broken Oath

Reeves fell.

Wade stood over him, breathing hard.

Blood ran from the colonel’s nose.

“Do it,” Reeves said.

Wade stared down at him.

“What?”

“You’ve waited five years. Kill me.”

The mountain groaned around them.

Wade picked up Reeves’s discarded rifle.

For one terrible second, Sarah believed her brother might pull the trigger.

No one would have blamed him.

No one inside that mountain would have called it anything except justice.

Wade looked toward his men.

Then his father.

Then Sarah.

He lowered the weapon.

“No.”

Reeves stared at him.

“You don’t get to disappear.”

Wade pulled plastic restraints from the colonel’s vest and secured his wrists.

“You’re going home with us.”

“Why?”

“So every family you lied to can see your face.”

Wade hauled him upright.

“You’re going to tell the world what you did.”

Something close to fear entered Reeves’s eyes.

Wade smiled.

“That’s worse than dying, isn’t it?”

Reeves didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.