Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Mega Pizzeria, Missoula
Crone
Crone hadn’t missed a single nuance of Sienna’s reactions to Milly’s story.
Her eyes had kept returning to the pregnant woman’s belly, and her own arms had unconsciously mimicked Milly’s protective gesture.
His heart clenched at the flash of raw anguish in her eyes.
He recognized that look. It was the same one he had seen in the mirror for years after he was rescued.
He felt her breaking point coming moments before she moved with her body tensing like a bowstring about to snap. When she fled, he was right behind her and followed her into the dark alley beside the pizzeria where she was pressed against the brick wall. Silent sobs wracked her small frame.
“Shh, love. I’ve got you.” He gathered her into his arms with one hand cradling her head against his chest while the other stroked her back in soothing circles.
Questions and theories raged through his mind as he held her, each was worse than the last, but underneath it all, a slow-burning fury began to build.
He didn’t need details to know someone had hurt her in the worst possible way.
When her sobs finally quieted to hiccupping breaths, he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead before tilting her face up with a gentle finger under her chin.
“Did he kill your baby, Sienna? Is that what that mark on your stomach means?”
The color drained from her face. “H-he didn’t want her and claimed she took my attention from him.
” The words spilled out in broken whispers as the full dark tale she had refused to share spilled to the surface.
Her voice faltered as she relayed the degrading scenes at his exclusive club, how his demands had escalated after she fell pregnant, and that final, horrific day when she had adamantly refused to comply.
The memory paralyzed her tongue, freezing her words as she recalled the clinical brutality with which he’d cut their child from her body.
“How far along were you?” Crone barely recognized his own voice through the roaring in his ears.
The rage threatened to consume him, to drag him back to those dark days in captivity.
But her suffering was worse. He’d been a game piece in a war.
She wasn’t at war. What the bastard had done was calculated cruelty against someone who should have been cherished for the precious gift she carried.
“Almost six months.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Who is he?” The words tore from deep within. Each syllable carried intent and the need for vengeance.
“No!” She recoiled with terror flooding her eyes. “Don’t ask me his name, Crone. He’s a dangerous man. I never realized just how dangerous and cruel until that day. I... I can’t stand to lose anyone else to that monster.”
“You won’t lose me, love, but it’s time you stopped running and looking over your shoulder every time you step outside of the Rawhide Ranch building.”
“What are you saying?” Sienna couldn’t deny the truth of his words. Even walking around the Ranch’s fields, it always felt like there were unseen eyes watching her.
“He needs to die.”
Sienna’s breath caught as her eyes widened in shock before darker, more primal emotions flickered in their depths. Relief and perhaps hope that finally the nightmare could be over.
“For as long as he’s alive, you’ll never feel safe. And for as long as he’s alive, I will always want to kill him.”
“No, Crone. He needs to be punished for what he did, but we’re not doing that.
We’re better than him.” Her smile was brave but tremulous.
“I’m now better than him. You made me better.
Yes, I still fear him looking for me... but you make me feel safe.
Even here, out in the open... I’m not afraid anymore. ”
Crone pulled her close, enveloping her small frame in his arms. She felt so delicate, so precious that rage and nausea roiled through him thinking of that faceless bastard’s brutality.
“T-that’s why I can’t have children. The damage he did…” Her voice cracked with pain. “And it’s the one thing I hate him for with every cell in my body.”
Crone’s jaw clenched as he held her. A silent vow ran on repeat in his mind. He would find this monster, and when he did, death would be too merciful an end.
Mike Newman
The street outside Mega Pizzeria, Missoula
Mike Newman stepped out of Missoula First National.
Satisfaction curled his thin lips into a broad smile.
Stan Hunter always had a knack for spotting the weak ones.
Those whose greed outweighed their morals.
The bank manager had practically salivated at the proposed figures even though it would turn him into a white-collar criminal.
Stan might be a respectable businessman in Seattle’s upper circles, but the real money flowed through their darker venture, known as The League.
They exclusively dealt in the illegal trade of raw diamonds, rare gems, antiquities, art, and gold.
His attention was drawn across the street as the pizzeria’s door slammed. He paused, squinting against the late afternoon sun. Recognition hit him like a punch to the gut.
“Well, well, what have we here? Or should I say, who?” he snickered as he pulled out his phone, lighting a cigar while it rang.
“So, did you manage to secure Landman?” Stan answered without the usual courtesy.
“Did you doubt I would?” Mike deliberately injected cockiness into his tone. Stan’s resulting silence was predictable. The man hated being reminded that Mike was his equal partner, not another lapdog to be commanded.
“When can we start moving those Kruger coins?” The relief in Stan’s voice was palpable. Five million dollars in South African gold had been sitting dead for months as they awaited “supposed” clean papers.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Mike watched smoke curl from his cigar with his eyes fixed on the couple in the shadowed alley. “You’ll never guess who I just found... all the way here in Missoula.”
The silence stretched, heavy with tension. Then, a harsh intake of breath. “How sure are you?”
“Oh, it’s her, my friend. One hundred percent her. Sienna Weathers just stepped out into the sun.” He barked a laugh aimed at twisting the knife in his partner’s back a little more. “It seems she has a new lover.”
Stan’s curses could have stripped paint. “Bring her to me, Mike.”
“No can do,” Mike blew perfect smoke rings as he watched the couple join a large group of people spilling out of the pizzeria and into a small, unmarked bus. “She’s with a big group of people... and they just left.”
“What the fuck? Are you fucking stupid? Follow the bitch. I want to know where she goes.”
Mike’s lip curled. Stan’s obsession with his ex-fiancée had already cost them too much time and resources.
The constant manhunt the first year after Sienna had disappeared had seriously affected their actual business.
He wasn’t as actively searching for her since, but he still had a small group of men looking for her all across the States. It was time for it to come to an end.
“Mike! I’m fucking talking to you.” Stan’s voice went razor-thin with rage.
“I’m not indulging you, Stan, my man.” Boredom dripped from every word. “Business comes first and it’s time you fucking do your full share of the work. If you want the bitch, you can come find her yourself.”
He disconnected amid Stan’s threats, pocketing his phone as he growled in a low voice, “You don’t get to shunt me around, Hunter.
Those days are over. I’ve slowly inserted myself as the primary leader of The League and I made sure all our associates know it.
Soon, once they have secured their partnership with an influx of cash, I won’t need you anymore. ”
The memory of the day Stan had shown his true colors, rose unbidden.
It was a sight that still haunted him, one that had shocked him to the core when they had finally managed to break down the door.
Sienna was lying in a pool of blood, her stomach gaping open with the mutilated little body of.
... Bile burned Mike’s throat as the vision he had banned from his mind surfaced.
He recalled how she had desperately tried to close it, as if she could save the little fetus, but Stan had been brutal.
Mike might operate outside the law, but he had lines he would never cross.
Women and children were absolutely off-limits, even in business dealings.
Stan had revealed himself as a man who had no integrity and no scruples. Worse, he was a monster.
“You’re not the kind of man The League needs anymore,” Mike muttered, crushing out his cigar. “We might be dealing in illegal activities, but we abhor violence and cruelty. And I’m going to make damn sure everyone knows exactly what kind of animal you really are.”