Chapter 29
twenty-nine
He drove Greta’s Jeep through the gate at speed, gravel spitting under the tires. The main house lights were on and men were already moving in the yard because Walker had called them the minute he hung up the phone.
Evander killed the engine and jumped out of the Jeep. His ribs had settled into a dull, constant ache that he could work around if he kept his breathing shallow. The stitches in his side pulled when he moved.
None of it mattered.
Walker stood on the porch with his hat off, which Evander had learned meant something serious was happening.
Bear came out of the infirmary at a jog, wiping his hands on a towel, and behind him Jonah materialized from the barn with Jax right behind.
X crossed from the bunkhouse, still pulling a jacket on over his tee.
Even Anson, the quiet farrier who usually preferred the company of horses and his fiancée Maggie over anyone else, was there.
Evander had only ever seen him a handful of times, and they’d never spoken.
Brandt’s SUV sat near the equipment shed, the marshal himself leaning against the hood with his arms crossed and his gaze fixed on Evander like he’d been waiting.
River wasn’t there.
Walker met him at the bottom of the steps. “Inside. Now.”
The main house kitchen held the warmth of Johanna’s coffee and the particular silence of men who understood the difference between a problem and an emergency.
Walker took the head of the table. Bear stood against the counter with his arms folded, his face set in the expression Evander had come to recognize as medical concern, trying very hard not to look like medical concern.
Jonah took the chair beside Walker. X dropped into one near the door.
Jax remained standing, his back to the wall.
Brandt came in last. He closed the door and leaned against it.
“Where’s Ghost?” Evander asked.
“Security shed.” Walker’s voice was flat. “Pulling satellite images. He’ll patch in when he has something.”
Evander set the satellite phone on the table. The green light blinked. He looked at the faces around him and said the words he’d carried from the cabin.
“Mal Granger has Rainey. He wants me at the turnout on County Road 14 where the power lines cross. Alone. Unarmed. I have until eleven o’clock to show up, or he kills her.” He kept his voice level. Military briefing. Nothing extra. “He’s got Hobbs with him. At least one other man. Maybe more.”
The room absorbed it. Bear’s jaw tightened. X’s fingers went still on the table. Jax didn’t move, but something in his eyes shifted, the way a scope adjusts.
“County 14 runs east of the ranch about eight miles,” Walker said. “Turnout’s a gravel pullout. Good sightlines in three directions. Bad ground for an approach.”
“Gemma drove her there.”
The voice came from the doorway. River stood in the frame, one hand on the jamb, his face white. He’d been crying.
“Gemma took her.” River’s voice cracked.
“Said she was helping Rainey find you.” He looked at Evander.
“I heard the side-by-side. Thought nothing of it. She’s always up early.
Always wandering.” His hand dropped from the doorframe.
“She’s been texting Mal updates for six weeks. Since before Rainey ever got here.”
The room went quiet.
River’s shoulders hunched. He braced both hands on the back of a chair, and his head dropped.
“She slept in my bed. For a month. Every night. I told her things—” He stopped.
His knuckles went white on the chair. “I showed her the security cameras. The blind spots. I walked her through the whole fucking ranch because I thought she was—” His breath came ragged, and he looked at Jax, Bear, and Anson.
“My Nessie. My Greta. My Maggie. I thought she—” He broke off. Couldn’t finish it.
Evander had seen men come apart before. He’d seen it in Afghanistan, in prison, in the mirror more times than he wanted to count. He knew the signs. The way the body tried to fold in on itself. The way the voice went thin and then disappeared altogether. River was three seconds from implosion.
He crossed the kitchen in two strides and grabbed River by the shoulders. “Look at me.”
River’s head came up. His eyes were wild, wet, lost in a place Evander recognized too well.
“She doesn’t have time for either of us to turn guilt into self-punishment.” Evander held his gaze. “Not you. Not me. You can fall apart after she’s safe, but right now you need to pull your shit together and help me get her back.”
River stared at him. Something moved across his face—raw, unfinished. Then his jaw set. He nodded. Once. Hard.
Evander released him and turned back to the table.
The satellite phone rang.
He answered it. Put it on speaker. Set it on the table.
Mal’s voice filled the kitchen. Cool. Amused. “Mr. Cole. I’m starting to wonder if you’re taking this seriously.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Alone? Unarmed?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I’ve got Hobbs sitting across from your songbird with a very large gun, and Hobbs has been awake for thirty-six hours, which does not improve his temperament.” A pause. The sound of someone shifting position. “The turnout. County 14. Power lines. You know it?”
“I know it.”
“Get here by eleven, or she dies.” The line went dead.
Evander set the phone down. Looked at Brandt.
The marshal’s expression gave nothing away. “He’s bluffing on the timeline. Or partially bluffing. He wants you moving. Wants you rushing. Rushing men make mistakes.”
“Or he’ll shoot her at eleven-oh-one,” Evander said.
“Also possible.” Brandt pushed off the door. “Ghost. Patch him in.”
Walker reached for the radio on the counter. Keyed it. “Ghost, what do you have for us?”
Thirty seconds of silence. Then Ghost’s voice, clipped and dry, came through the speaker. “Still working.”
“We need the utility vehicle’s last known location,” Brandt said. “Side-by-side. This morning, pre-dawn.”
“Tracking.” The sound of keys. Ghost worked fast. Evander had watched him operate enough to know the man moved through digital space the way Evander moved through terrain—reading patterns, anticipating gaps, never taking the obvious route.
“Last ping from the GPS was 05:17. Dead-end track off County 12, northeast quadrant. Coordinates coming to your phone.”
Walker’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Nodded.
“That’s not the turnout,” Brandt said. “He moved her. County 14 is the meet. County 12 is where they took her first.” He looked at Evander. “How many men did you hear on the call?”
“Mal Granger. Hobbs. At least one other voice in the background. Couldn’t ID it.”
“Creed,” River said. “It’s Creed. Has to be.”
“Possible.” Brandt’s gaze swept the table.
“We operate on worst-case. Mal, Hobbs, Creed, Gemma. Four hostiles. Rainey as primary. Cole as secondary target.” He looked at Evander.
“You drive in. Alone. No weapon visible. They’ll search you.
Let them. Our approach comes through the timber on the north and east. High ground above the turnout gives us overwatch.
I want two shooters there. Ghost, you’re one. Cole, who’s your second?”
The question landed. Evander looked at the faces around him.
Walker, steady at the head of the table.
Bear, his medical kit already packed and waiting.
Jonah, calm and ready. X, vibrating with contained energy.
Jax, silent and lethal against the wall.
River, standing straight now, his grief compressed into something harder.
“Jax,” Evander said.
Jax nodded. Once.
“Ghost and Jax take the ridge.” Brandt turned to Walker. “You, Callahan, and Vega approach from the north tree line. I’ll come in from the east with Beckett.” His gaze found River. “You know the ground?”
“I’ve ridden it.” River’s voice was steadier than it had any right to be. “Every trail. Every draw. I can get us in quiet.”
“Good.” Brandt looked at Evander. “You drive in at ten-fifty. Park in the open. Hands visible. They’ll take you to Rainey. Once you have visual confirmation she’s alive, you signal. One raised hand. We move on that.”
Evander held Brandt’s gaze. The marshal’s eyes were dark and unreadable and absolutely certain. This was a man who had extracted witnesses from worse situations than this. A man who understood exactly what he was asking Evander to do.
Walk in. Alone. Unarmed. Let them take him to her. Trust that the men moving through the trees would reach them in time.
Trust.
The word sat in his chest like something with weight.
“Cole.” Walker’s voice pulled him back. “This only works if you believe it. All of it. Not just the tactical pieces. The rest.” His blue eyes held Evander’s without yielding.
“These men are choosing to go with you. That’s their right.
Not yours to take away because you’re afraid of what happens if they bleed. ”
The kitchen held the words. Bear watched him. Jonah watched him. X had gone still, his usual performance stripped away, nothing left but the man underneath.
Evander looked at River. At the devastation still raw on his face, and the choice River had made anyway. To stand. To use what was left.
He looked at Walker. At the man who had built this place out of his own guilt and called it redemption, and who had never once asked Evander to pretend his own guilt was something other than what it was.
He looked at Brandt. At the marshal who had placed himself between Rainey and a motorcycle club because it was his job, and then kept placing himself there because something about Rainey Beckett had gotten under his skin the way she got under everyone’s.
These men were going into the trees because of him. Not despite him. Because of him.
He had spent eight years believing the opposite was true.
“Okay,” he said.
One word. The heaviest he’d carried in years.
Brandt checked his watch. “Nine forty-three. We move in seven minutes.” He looked at the room. “Gear up. Light and fast. Comms only when necessary. Cole signals, we move. Anything happens to the primary before that signal, we move anyway. Understood?”
Nods around the table. No discussion. No hesitation.
Bear crossed to Evander. Handed him a small field kit. “Pressure bandage. QuikClot. Tourniquet. Keep it hidden until you need it.” His eyes held Evander’s. “And for fuck’s sake, try not to need it.”
Evander took the kit. Slipped it into his boot.
X pushed off the wall. “I’ll get the trucks staged.
North approach takes the green Ford and the UTV.
East gets the side-by-side.” He moved for the door, then stopped.
Turned back. Looked at Evander with an expression stripped of every joke he’d ever told.
“She’s going to be okay, hermano. She’s tough. Tougher than any of us.”
He left. The door swung shut behind him.
Jax followed. Silent. Efficient. A man who knew exactly what he was walking into and had made his peace with it years ago.
Jonah stood. “I’ll check Boone. Make sure he stays put.” He paused beside Evander. Dropped a hand on his shoulder. Squeezed once. Left.
The kitchen emptied. Walker went to the gun safe in the hallway. Bear returned to the infirmary. River stood alone by the table, his hands flat on the wood, his head down.
Evander crossed to him. Stopped beside him. Didn’t touch him. Didn’t need to.
“I loved her,” River whispered. “I actually fucking loved her. And the whole time she was waiting for my sister to show up so she could hand her to a man who’d put a bullet in her head.” His throat worked. “How do you come back from that? How do you trust anything after that?”
Evander looked at the wall. At the photograph hanging there—Valor Ridge in summer, the mountains behind it, the men standing on the porch with their dogs at their feet. A family someone had built out of broken pieces.
“You don’t,” he said. “Not right away. You just do the next thing. And then the thing after that. And eventually the trust comes back different than it was before. Or it doesn’t. Either way, you keep doing the next thing.”
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.”