42. Hunter
Chapter forty-two
Hunter
The adrenaline that floods my system when I hear Dylan got near Ellie and Audrey is enough to bring a dead man back to life.
Two hours.
I was two full hours away.
A hundred and twenty minutes where anything could’ve happened.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel as I press harder on the gas, the speedometer climbing higher than it should. My mind keeps replaying it—Ellie and Cleo on their walk, little Audrey in her stroller, when Dylan walks right up to them.
Like he’d planned it all. He knew I wasn’t around.
The realization hits me like recoil—sharp, jarring, and impossible to ignore.
He’s not going to stop.
Not now. Not ever.
And when my terminal leave comes to an end in just a few short weeks, I’ll be heading to Knoxville one weekend a month to drill with my Reserve unit. I won’t be able to protect Ellie from two hours away.
So I do the only thing I can, for now. I dial Connor. I tell him about what just happened with Dylan and Ellie, and how desperate I am to get this man as far away from my wife and baby as possible.
“Please tell me you’ve got something,” I say, my voice tight as I weave through cars on the highway, every second feeling like a lifetime.
“I’m getting there,” he says. “Dylan’s been real careful. But I’m starting to see a pattern.”
“Tell me.”
“There are shell companies receiving most of his shipments. Paper trail’s thin, but it’s there if you know where to look.”
“Money laundering?” I wonder aloud.
“Maybe,” he says. “But that’s not the part that doesn’t add up.”
Something tells me nothing’s going to be easy with Dylan involved. “Then what is?”
“They log truck weights at checkpoints along major routes,” he says. “I pulled records from a few of Dylan’s runs. October last year—one of his trucks was listed as hauling Miss Rita’s Sourdough Bread.”
I snort. “Doesn’t exactly scream ‘criminal mastermind.’”
“Except even fully loaded, a shipment like that should’ve come in around forty thousand pounds. Give or take.”
I slow slightly, my focus sharpening. “And it didn’t.”
“Not even close. That truck clocked in at just over seventy-two thousand.”
Silence fills the line as Connor lets that data point sink in.
The shipment was almost double the weight it should have been.
My mind starts working through it—volume, density, space.
“That’s not bread,” I mutter the obvious.
“No,” he agrees. “And it’s not just a one-off. I found three more runs like it. Same pattern. Legit cargo on paper, way too heavy in reality.”
I run a hand over my jaw, pulse pounding. “Drugs?”
“Maybe. But drugs are about volume more than weight. This is consistent. Dense.”
My heart hammers against my chest. Once, twice, three times.
Then it clicks.
“Weapons,” I say.
“Yeah,” he replies quietly. “That’s where I’m landing too.”
My stomach clenches as if someone just landed a punch.
Weapons don’t just mean money. They mean people who are armed, organized … and dangerous. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel, my knuckles going white.
Dylan’s not going to let go of Ellie and Audrey. The thought hits me like an eighteen-wheeler straight to the chest.
Heaven help us.
I press harder on the gas.
“Keep digging,” I say. “I need something we can use. ASAP.”
“I’m on it,” he says. “But Hunter, if this is what we think it is, you need to be careful.”
I glance at the road stretching out in front of me, every mile between me and Ellie feeling like a liability.
And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever happens, I would lay down my life for Ellie and Audrey. It’s not the first time I’ve had the thought, and it won’t be the last. Not with Dylan around. “Careful’s not really an option anymore.”