Chapter 31
thirty-one
Thirty yards of open gravel between him and the SUV.
Evander walked it with his hands at his sides, fingers spread, palms forward. The gravel crunched under his boots with each step, loud in the morning quiet, and he let it be loud because he wanted Mal focused on him, unarmed, alone.
The power lines overhead hummed in a low, constant drone.
The sky had brightened to a flat, featureless gray, the sun hidden by a thick layer of clouds.
No wind. No sound except the gravel and the hum and the distant, almost imperceptible whisper of pine branches somewhere behind him, where men he trusted were moving through timber without making noise.
He counted the threats.
Malachi Granger walked toward him, smirking like he’d already won. Gemma hovered behind him, her blonde hair pulled back, a pistol in her right hand held low against her thigh. She kept glancing at Mal, then at Evander, then back at Mal. Nervous energy. Not trained for this part.
Creed leaned against his motorcycle twenty feet to the left, arms crossed, rifle slung across his back. He watched the ridge, not the road. His hair hung across his face, and his jaw was set. A man waiting for something to shift.
Hobbs stood near the SUV’s rear tire, and Rainey sat on the ground beside him.
His chest locked.
Blood on her lower lip. A darkening bruise along her cheekbone, the skin split at the crest where something had caught her hard enough to break it.
Her wrists were tied behind her back. She sat against the tire with her chin up and her eyes on Evander, full of love and, if he wasn’t mistaken, irritation.
He kept walking. Twenty yards. Fifteen.
Mal met him halfway. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
Evander stopped. Ten yards from the SUV. Close enough to talk. Far enough that Mal still felt safe.
“Let her go,” Evander said. “Let her get in my truck and leave, and I’ll stay.”
Mal laughed. A short, pleased sound and nodded to Hobbs. “Bring her.”
Hobbs grabbed Rainey by the arm and hauled her upright.
She came up fighting — her weight dropped, her boots dug at the gravel, and Hobbs adjusted.
He pulled her against his chest, one arm locked around her ribs, and produced a knife from somewhere — a folding blade, short, utilitarian — and pressed it against her throat.
Just like at The Dead Marshall.
Evander’s breath snagged in his chest as her eyes found his.
She didn’t plead. She didn’t beg. She looked at him with the same steady, furious clarity he’d seen on the mountain, in the cabin, in every moment she’d refused to be small, and the message in her face was not save me.
It was don’t you dare give them what they want.
Mal walked closer. Stopped five feet from Evander. Close enough that Evander could smell peppermint on his breath and see the fine grain of stubble along his jaw.
“On your knees,” Mal said.
Evander looked at Rainey. At the knife against her throat. At Hobbs behind her, his face blank, his arm around her ribs, holding her like cargo.
He went to his knees even as every fiber of his body screamed at him to move—to close the distance, to take Mal’s throat before the blade could press deeper, to do something, anything, other than kneel in the dirt while a man held a knife to Rainey’s neck.
He didn’t move.
This was the plan. Walk in. Confirm she’s alive. Signal. Let the men in the trees do their work. Trust them. Trust Jax on the ridge with a rifle and Ghost beside him, trust Walker and X moving through the north tree line, trust River leading Brandt through the pines.
Trust.
Evander raised his hands over his head. The signal.
Mal’s smile flickered. “What’s that? You surrendering?”
“Something like that,” Evander said.
The attack didn’t come from where he expected.
Rainey tightened her core, dropped her chin against the blade, then drove the back of her skull into Hobbs’s face.
The crack of bone on cartilage was sharp and wet. Hobbs’s head snapped back. Blood erupted from his nose in a bright fountain, and his grip on the knife went slack for one stuttering heartbeat as both hands flew to his face.
Rainey twisted. Dropped her weight. Her right shoulder came free of his arm, and she spun toward the opening, her bound hands still behind her. She got halfway around before Hobbs’s hand shot out and caught her hair.
He yanked. Her feet went out from under her, and she hit the gravel hard, hip-first, and Hobbs was on her before she could roll. He punched her, snapping her head sideways and dropping her flat.
Rainey lay on the gravel. Blood from her split lip smeared the stones. Her eyes were open, dazed, and her bound hands twisted beneath her back.
Something broke in Evander’s chest. Not cracked. Broke. Clean through, the way bone breaks when the force exceeds what it can hold.
He started to rise, but Creed moved faster. The rifle came off Creed’s shoulder in a single fluid motion, the barrel swinging not toward Evander, not toward Rainey, but toward Hobbs.
Creed’s voice cut the air. “Get off her.”
Hobbs froze. Blood sheeted from his broken nose, staining his chin, dripping onto Rainey’s jacket. He looked up at Creed, incredulous.
“Creed.” Mal’s voice went tight. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Creed didn’t answer Mal. He stepped forward, the rifle leveled at Hobbs’s head, and reached down with his left hand. The folding knife. He pulled it from Hobbs’s loosened grip, flipped it open, and cut the zip tie around Rainey’s wrists in a single clean stroke.
Rainey’s hands came free. She gasped — a sharp, ragged sound — and rolled onto her knees, pressing her palms flat against the gravel as she dry heaved.
“Creed.” Mal shouted, his composure cracking. “You dead man. You’re a fucking dead man, you hear me—”
“Shut up,” Creed said. He hadn’t looked at Mal. His eyes stayed on Hobbs, the rifle steady, his finger inside the trigger guard. “Back up. Now.”
Hobbs straightened. Blood ran down his face in twin streams. He looked from Creed to Mal, waiting for instruction.
Gemma came from the left, fast, closing the distance to Rainey in three strides. She grabbed Rainey by the hair and the arm and hauled her upright, the pistol in her other hand pressing hard under Rainey’s jaw.
“Enough,” Gemma said. Her voice was high, tight. “Nobody moves. Creed, put the fucking gun down. Mal, shut up. Nobody moves or I shoot her.”
Rainey’s feet scrambled against the gravel. She stood half-bent in Gemma’s grip, the pistol under her chin, her freed hands hanging at her sides. Blood ran from her lip down her neck. Her eyes were clear, and she drove her elbow into Gemma’s ribs.
Gemma doubled. The pistol jerked sideways. Rainey twisted free and threw herself backward, putting two feet of distance between them, and Gemma came up swinging.
Where the fuck was the cavalry? Shouldn’t they be here by now?
Evander searched the trees and saw nothing.
No, there was something dark, moving low.
Tilly exploded from the tree line with a deep-chested bark, raw and furious, and she hit Gemma at full stride.
The Cane Corso’s jaws closed on Gemma’s arm below the elbow, and the sound Gemma made was not a scream.
It was something beyond screaming— a high, animal shriek that tore through the morning as Tilly’s weight carried Gemma sideways and down.
They hit the gravel together. Gemma’s pistol skittered free.
Tilly’s jaws tightened, and Gemma’s arm bent at an angle arms weren’t meant to bend.
Then Tilly released the arm and went for the face.
Gemma’s shriek became a gurgle. Tilly’s teeth found her cheek, her jaw, the soft tissue below her eye.
Blood sheeted from the wounds, painting her throat, her jacket, the gravel beneath her.
She screamed and flailed, but Tilly held on, shaking her head like she did when she played with her favorite rope toy.
“Tilly!” Rainey’s voice. Raw. Hoarse. “Tilly, off!”
The dog released. Stepped back. Stood over Gemma with her hackles raised and her teeth red, her dark eyes fixed on the woman on the ground. The growl that came from her chest was the deepest sound Evander had ever heard her make.
Gemma lay in the gravel with her face opened from cheek to jaw and her arm broken. She was still conscious. Her good hand pressed against her ruined cheek, as she sobbed.
Everyone in the turnout froze and stared at the carnage.
Then everything happened at once.
“Kill them!” Mal screamed. He was backing toward the SUV, pulling a pistol from his waistband, face contorted and too red. “Kill them all! Open fire!”
Hobbs moved toward Creed. Creed fired.
The round took Hobbs high in the chest, and the big man staggered but didn’t drop. He came on, and Creed worked the bolt and fired again, and this time Hobbs folded. His knees hit the gravel, and he went down face-first and didn’t move.
Gunfire erupted from the ridge.
Jax and Ghost.
Finally.
Mal dove behind the SUV’s engine block as rounds punched into the vehicle’s body.
Evander strode toward Rainey as men converged on the turnout. X, Bear, and Walker came from the east. River, Brandt, and Anson came from the west while a wave of marshal vehicles blockaded the road below.
Mal ran.
He broke from behind the SUV and sprinted for Creed’s motorcycle, the only vehicle still running, the engine ticking over in idle.
He made it three steps before a round from the ridge kicked gravel at his feet.
He veered, changed direction, and ran for the tree line instead.
Another round cracked past him. He flinched but didn’t stop. He hit the timber and disappeared.
Evander reached Rainey and dropped to his knees beside her. “Songbird.”
She looked up at him. Blood on her mouth, blood on her neck, her wrists raw and red where the zip tie had cut through skin. Her eyes were glassy from the blow, but she was still fierce, furious.
“I told you not to come alone,” she said.
“I know.”
“You never listen.”
“I know.” He got his hands under her arms and lifted. She came up with him, her weight against his chest, her boots finding the gravel. She swayed. He held her.
Behind them, a motorcycle fired to life. Creed looked at Evander across fifteen yards of bloodied gravel, then hit the kickstand and sped up the mountain.
Hobs was dead.
Gemma was incapacitated.
And Mal was gone. Vanished into the trees.
Evander could track him. He knew the terrain. He knew the drainages and the game trails and the places a man on foot would go when he was running. He could follow. He could finish it.
He looked at the tree line where Mal had vanished.
He looked at Hobbs on the ground.
He looked down at Rainey. She stood against his chest with her fingers curled into his jacket, and her face turned up to his.
She was the only thing in the world that mattered.
“Take me home, Evander,” she whispered.
He bent and lifted her. She made a sound — not protest, not pain, just the exhale of a body that had been braced for too long and was finally, finally being held by someone it trusted.
He got her up, one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, and he carried her to his truck. “Come, Tilly.”
His dog—a big, beautiful, terrifying dog—wagged her tail and followed with her muzzle coated in blood and a proud trot in her step.
Behind him, Brandt’s voice. “Clear! North clear! Ghost, status?”
“Ridge clear. One runner, east-northeast, on foot. I’ve got eyes.”
“Track him. Don’t engage alone.”
If Owen “Ghost” Booker had eyes on the man, Mal wasn’t getting away.
Evander reached the truck. He opened the passenger door and set Rainey on the seat, careful of her wrists, careful of her face. She caught his jacket with both hands and held on.
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t you dare leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’ve already decided what happens next and you’re not going to ask me.”
He crouched in the open door, eye level with her. “I’m not leaving. I’m getting the med kit. It’s in the cab.”
She held his jacket for one more beat. Then she let go.
As he grabbed the med kit from the back of the truck, he spotted Bear coming toward him.
He waved the mountain of a man off—Bear could examine her back at the ranch, but right now, he didn’t want anyone else touching her.
He was too wired, adrenaline spilling into his blood, and he didn’t trust himself to stand back and watch another man’s hands moving over her skin, even if those hands were just Bear’s.
He cracked the kit open. Gauze. Antiseptic. Butterfly strips. He turned back to her and took her wrist. The skin was torn and raw and bloody, but the wrist itself was intact. No fracture that he could feel. He cleaned it. She hissed through her teeth but didn’t pull away.
He cleaned her lip. Dabbed the antiseptic along the split skin. She watched him work with her one good eye.
“You could have gone after him,” she said softly. “Mal.”
He pressed a butterfly strip along the split in her lip. “I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because you were on the ground, and nothing else mattered.”
She stared at him. Her one good eye filled. She blinked, and a fat tear slid down her cheek. She pressed her forehead against his jaw and held there, breathing. A fine tremor shook her shoulders as the adrenaline left her body in slow, shuddering waves.
He put his hand on the back of her head. Held her. His fingers caught in her hair and he felt the knot where her skull had connected with Hobbs’s face.
Finally, Rainey lifted her head from his jaw and smiled down at Tilly sitting at his feet. Tilly looked at her and gave a whole-body wiggle.
“Come here,” Rainey said to the dog.
Tilly stood on her back legs and pushed her blocky head into Rainey’s lap.
Rainey bent over her and pressed her face into the dog’s fur. She made a sound that was half sob and half laugh. “You are the best girl, Tilly. The absolute best ever. You will get the treats from now on. Anything your little doggie heart desires, it’s yours.”
Evander rubbed his hand over his dog’s head. “Agreed.”