On the Brink of Bliss (Moonlit Ridge #5)

Chapter 1

ONE

CASH

“Tell me she’s okay.” I could feel the rage coming off Silas as he spoke from the other end of the line.

“From my surveillance, the only thing I can say for certain is she’s alive, but the bastard won’t let anyone get close enough to her to know the state she’s in,” I gritted into my cell as I kept winding through the dense foliage that surrounded my property.

Rays of sunlight cut through the trees and blinded my eyes as I tromped across the land, the way I did every couple of days to make sure no assholes were treading into places they didn’t belong.

“I’ve got to get to her, man.” There was no missing the plea in his words. The fact that he was a second from flying out the door to get to her himself.

“I know, but you’ve got to hang tight and do this thing right. You’re only going to put her in more danger by going in there without a plan. That asshole has an army surrounding him.”

“Swear to fuck, I’m going to bleed him slow,” Silas hissed between clenched teeth.

“Dude is as good as dead.” I kept my voice hushed as I continued to stalk along the perimeter of my property, my dog Duke trotting along at my side, forever standing guard.

Forty acres of isolated bliss. Not a soul around for miles.

Exactly the way I wanted it.

Bliss.

What a fucking joke.

Because with the type of lives we led? There was no bliss.

There was only chaos and destruction. Blood and bodies and carnage.

The exact type of carnage Silas and I had every intention of inflicting as I gave him an update about what I found on his younger sister, Elena.

He’d come to me about a week ago after he hadn’t heard from her in a few days. Asked me to get into her phone history to find out what was happening since hacking my way into people’s lives was my specialty.

I discovered she’d gotten involved with Kent Ellison, a piece of shit drug dealer Silas and I used to have ties with back when we ran with the Iron Owls MC.

Asshole was a twisted fuck who didn’t mind a little torture to get his way.

He’d tried to wrangle Silas and his new motorcycle club he established, Crimson Crows, into running pills across the country for him. When Silas refused, Kent apparently thought he was going to get his way using his favorite tactic, and he somehow lured Elena in.

The texts I found between them had been lurid, Elena falling prey to his game.

Now, no one had heard from her in a week.

Problem was, Silas hadn’t gotten a word from Kent, either.

No demands or terms had been given.

Uncertainty rolled through my consciousness.

I had no clue what the fuck Kent was up to.

“Can’t believe she’d get involved with him on her own accord,” Silas rambled, clearly distraught but also contemplating the same questions I was asking myself.

“Have a meeting with my crew tonight. Gonna grab a team and get in there ourselves to see what’s going on. We’ll get her back.”

Sovereign Sanctum was the one good part of me remaining. Our secret society that got women and children in extreme danger to safety. Took them under our wing and gave them new lives. Identities I created with a few strokes of my fingers.

It was my job.

Hacking into the digital footprint that everyone left behind.

Keeping tabs on the monsters who roamed this world. Then manipulating their reality into anything I wanted it to be.

Right then, I was itching to use my hands in a whole different way. The hacking I ached to do involving much sharper objects than a keyboard and screen. The violence I forever thirsted to enact winding my nerves into disorder.

“You’d better make sure I’m a part of that plan,” Silas warned.

I wanted to tell him no. Insist he wasn’t thinking straight. The hate and worry would only drive him to make mistakes. I knew firsthand how that shit went down. I also knew well enough there’d be no chance of keeping him away.

“Let me figure out a plan with my brothers, then we’ll ride.”

He hesitated, then asked, “You sure you want to take this on?”

We both knew this was risky.

“Absolutely.”

My life was sacrifice. I did whatever was required to protect the vulnerable.

A complete offering to Sovereign Sanctum.

Silas and his MC were under that umbrella. Our accomplices in arms, though their goals varied a bit from ours.

It went deeper than that for me. The need to crush the demons that roamed. The fucking twisted thrill I got when I did. The violence that burned inside me close to unbearable until the moment it was unleashed.

He blew out a strained sigh. “Can’t thank you enough for doing this. I can’t let anything happen to her…”

Pain bled into the last.

Old rage whipped through my insides and butted against the grief.

“We’ll get her back.” It was a thick, gritted promise. “I’ll text you later.”

Without saying anything else, I ended the call, doing my best to fight off the horrors that wanted to consume. Knowing full well what Silas was feeling right then.

I sucked it down and forced myself to keep moving.

My boots thudded against the damp dirt as I followed the rugged path that had been carved by my feet. Branches of oaks and pines hung heavy overhead, their thick trunks interspersed with the spindly pines that grew dense in this part of the forest.

Duke panted behind me, his tail swishing back and forth as he trotted along, the only companion I needed.

We kept moving down the side of the mountain on the east side of my property in the direction of the river that ran the border of my land.

It was the area where I got the most trespassers since a campground sat right above the farthest northeast line, hikers ignoring the slew of No Trespassing signs I had staked up on the fence that surrounded the perimeter.

I hopped over a fallen tree then ducked under a low-slung branch, pushing it out of my way as I slid down an incline. The soles of my boots dug in for traction as I hunted through the underbrush.

The sound of the river grew louder as I angled my way down the harshly sloped terrain.

I suddenly froze when I felt a shift in the air. The hairs lifted at my nape and my pulse increased. Couldn’t shake it, this creeping sense that skittered over me.

Inclining my ear, I listened to the sounds of the forest. The faint rustle of the trees as the breeze blew through and the rush of the river at the bottom of the ravine.

I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that set me on guard.

But I could feel it.

Something wasn’t right.

Duke’s ears twitched as he listened, and his golden tail went rigid.

“You feel that?” I rumbled low.

Duke gave a little whimper, no question, sensing it, too.

I started to wind through the thick pines again, slower that time as I listened for any movement or sound.

Branches scratched against my arms and my heart rate accelerated. I was always fucking on edge because I never knew who might be coming for me.

This felt different than when I sensed one of those random trespassers hiking on my land.

Anxiety bubbled beneath the surface of my skin, awareness coming on that whoever was out there truly didn’t belong.

Adrenaline squeezed my chest, and I reached back to grip the handle of my gun that was hidden under my shirt and strapped into a holster at my back, not pulling it out but ready.

I never got complacent.

Never took the chance.

I followed in the direction of where the sensation was coming from, and I hopped off the path and weaved through the shrubbery.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins as Duke and I angled through the woods.

I hustled down a steep decline, soles of my boots skidding and digging into the damp, dark earth below.

The sound of the river grew. A loud whoosh of the water as it streamed down from the mountain peaks.

I slowed to a creep when that sense became all-consuming.

My skin prickled.

Someone was there.

Pulling my gun from the holster, I knelt low as I dashed between the cover of trees.

My breaths turned jagged and shallow as I edged up behind the trunk of an ancient oak and peered out through the limbs and leaves at the area that opened to the river.

Here, grass lined the bank, and it had a few of the same boulders that I’d traversed on my way down sporadically sitting along the water’s edge.

Through a break in two of the large rocks, I could see movement.

Someone concealed in the barrier the boulders made.

The flash of flesh.

The fall of long hair draped down a bare back.

What the fuck? Did someone have the audacity to take a swim in my river?

I swallowed down the murder that had been itching in my fingers, and irritation rushed in to take its place as I tucked my gun back into its holster.

This was my sanctuary.

Miles between me and humanity because I no longer possessed any of that.

Teeth gritted, I wound out of the cover of trees and moved toward the intruder, though my footsteps were somehow restricted.

It felt like I was sludging through quicksand.

Like time had been set to slow.

Or maybe it was just set to rewind.

I blinked as I came up around the side of the boulder, sure my mind had to be playing tricks on me. Eyes convincing me of something that wasn’t there. Something that couldn’t be there.

A woman was facing away, wearing underwear that were soaked and nothing else. Long locks of cinnamon hair clung to the slick moisture of her back and shoulders as she lathered a bar of soap over her skin.

A thousand memories impaled me. A cyclone of old joy and demolished dreams and the most gutting sort of shame. All of it crashed together to boil a riot of fury in my blood.

It couldn’t be her.

It couldn’t be.

Like the woman felt the rush of my presence, she whirled around.

That was the moment the cornflower-colored eyes I would never forget widened back at me. So blue they were nearly purple.

Eyes that had always danced with mirth and shyness and vulnerability.

For a moment, I was frozen by them.

Fucking staked to the spot.

Before her name that was nothing but a barb of guilt and rejection fell as a whisper from my tongue.

“Daisy?”