Chapter Twenty-One
How had none of them seen the real Wilkes lurking behind the facade? Oh, she’d caught glimpses of his temper and narcissistic tendencies, but he was discussing murder as though it was the weather.
Feigning a calm she was far from feeling, she pushed to her feet, careful to keep her body between Wilkes and Cyrus’s head. He might survive the chest and leg wounds, but a headshot would instantly kill him.
Wilkes’s lascivious gaze went straight to her chest, covered only by her sports bra. Her tank top was on Cyrus’s chest soaked in his blood. She swallowed heavily and breathed deeply. She couldn’t afford to pass out. “I’ll go with you.” That snapped his attention back to her face.
A cruel smile spread across his handsome visage.
“I thought you’d see things my way.” He waved the barrel of the rifle.
“This way.” Rather than follow his directions, she walked toward him.
If she could get close enough, maybe she could disarm him.
“Ah, ah, ah.” He shook his head. “You’re not following directions.
” When he turned the rifle toward Cyrus, she jumped in front of it.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“That’s more like it. Now start walking.” He pointed in the direction he’d come from. “I didn’t see anyone else around, but I don’t mind killing anyone who gets in my way. You wouldn’t like that, would you? Such a Goody Two-shoes, always following the rules.”
“I was a deputy.” She took a tentative step away from Cyrus. “It’s our job to follow the rules.”
Wilkes laughed, his blue eyes sparkling. “Rules are for suckers. I learned a long time ago how to manipulate them and people to get what I want. And I always get what I want. Beg me to spare him.”
“What?” The smile became a frown and the rifle shifted.
“Please don’t shoot him again. Let him have these last few minutes of life.
” And hopefully more, but Wilkes wouldn’t know that.
“Please, let’s just go. Please.” If it made him happy to think he’d broken her, she’d get down on her knees and plead.
Whatever it took to protect Cyrus from further injury.
“That’s more like it.” He smiled down at Cyrus. “I’m going to fuck Vinnie. She’s teased me enough years. It’s time to pay up. You think about that as the life drains out of you.”
Laughing, he grabbed her arm in a bruising grip and dragged her away. She didn’t fight him, knowing he’d love any excuse to take his ire out on Cyrus. It was hell, but she had to wait until they were far away from here before making her move.
She glanced over her shoulder. Cyrus was watching her, the promise of death reflected in his black eyes. Wilkes jerked her forward, forcing her to pay attention or trip and fall.
“You’ve caused me no end of trouble, Vinnie.”
“I’m sorry.”
He released her and casually backhanded her. Not expecting the blow, she lost her footing and hit the ground hard. Pain exploded across her face and up her tailbone. She tasted blood in the corner of her mouth. “You’re not sorry, but you will be. Now get up and start walking.”
Afraid to do anything else with him acting so erratic, she pushed to her feet and got moving.
The forest was eerily quiet as they trekked through the deep brush and around the rocky terrain.
All the animals had gone into hiding, sensing the intruder on the mountain.
Sun filtered through the heavy canopy in places where it thinned.
A bead of sweat rolled down the center of her back.
Her heart was back in the clearing with Cyrus.
Was he even alive? Tears pricked her eyes, but she blinked them back, refusing to let Wilkes see them fall.
All her worries about getting into a relationship with Cyrus were meaningless now that she was staring death in the face.
Life didn’t come with guarantees. She should have grabbed onto happiness when it was offered instead of allowing fear to steal it from her.
There was no way Wilkes could keep her alive after this.
At least Adam wouldn’t be alone. If Cyrus didn’t make it, his brothers would take care of their son.
There was comfort in that. But she wasn’t done yet.
She’d fight tooth and nail to save herself and Cyrus.
Because there was nothing stopping Wilkes from coming back later for her son.
Hearing him talk about Adam having an accident made her blood run cold and stoked a volcano of fury inside her.
“To your left.” He jabbed the tip of the rifle into her shoulder to prod her.
“Why are you doing this?” Talking might distract him. All she needed was a small opening, a moment of distraction.
“Why?” He slammed the butt of the rifle into her back, sending her stumbling onto her hands and knees. Rocks and twigs gouged into her palms, tearing the skin. “I asked you out, but you refused.”
“We were colleagues. It’s not smart to date someone at the workplace.” It had given her a perfect reason for turning him down without having to come out and say she didn’t want to.
“That’s not an issue anymore, is it?”
Gathering her strength, she pushed to her feet, wiping her hands on her jeans.
“No, it’s not.” The bastard had helped get her fired, but that didn’t excuse the sheriff’s actions and those of the other deputies she’d worked with.
None of them had reached out to her in any capacity.
Not a supportive email or phone call. She’d been totally alone, but she wasn’t alone anymore.
Wilkes didn’t get it. If Cyrus died, if she died, the other Sin brothers would come for him. They were the Seven Deadly Sins, loyal, dangerous, and unrelenting.
Wilkes tilted his head to one side. “Get going?”
What had he heard? Her pounding heart drowned out most all other sounds.
She prayed it was Cyrus, and then prayed it wasn’t.
The bullet had nicked his heart. Werewolf or not, that kind of injury would take time to heal.
The massive blood loss was worrying, too. Not to mention the secondary leg wound.
He’ll live. He had to. The alternative was unthinkable.
She drew strength from that belief as they trekked through underbrush and dense woods. Wilkes consulted the GPS on his phone several times.
“How did you find me?” There was no guarantee she’d be here with Cyrus, although it was a logical place to start looking.
“Your good neighbor Peggy couldn’t wait to tell me you’d sold your house to her son and driven off with Sin and his brothers.
” There were few secrets in a small town.
Word had probably spread like wildfire. “Then my good buddy Winslow told me Sin is Adam’s father, but I’d already figured that out.
The family resemblance is unmistakable.”
“Is that why you shot out the window?” Peggy had kept the secret of Adam’s birth, but it was impossible to keep something that big quiet in a small town. She should have figured Deputy Winslow would be eager to share that tidbit of news.
Wilkes shrugged. “It was worth a try. It would have saved me the trouble of having to come here if I’d taken him out.
It was entertaining to watch all of you scurrying around.
” He laughed. “Poor Vinnie. Such a hard life.” His mocking smile made her want to smack it off his face.
“After seeing how protective the big bastard was around you, I figured there was a good chance you’d be here. ”
Fingers fisted in her hair and dragged her head back.
Furious blue eyes glared at her. “It was bad enough when no one knew who Adam’s father was.
It was embarrassing, but women are weak when it comes to men.
” She swallowed her angry retort, not taking the bait.
He was looking for any excuse to hurt her.
“I had to live with that.” He yanked harder.
She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.
“To discover you chose a loser bounty hunter over me was a slap in the face.”
“We weren’t dating.” Back in those early days, Wilkes hadn’t even looked at her. Or so she’d thought. She was learning too many of her assumptions about him were wrong.
“You were pregnant.” He shoved her forward and she started walking again. “I tried to forget you, dated other women. None of them were you. I respected your dad and your mom. Once she was gone, it was my duty to step in and take care of you.”
If this was his idea of taking care of her, she didn’t want to see what the opposite was. Her stomach churned at the mere thought.
A menacing growl had Wilkes spinning around. “Do the Sins have dogs?” He leveled the rifle at her. Her heart skipped a beat. Cyrus! It had to be him. How was that possible? “Well, do they?” Wilkes yelled.
“No, they don’t have dogs.”
“Must belong to a local hunter. Hurry.” He prodded her back on their path. “We’re almost there.”
“Where are we going?” Once he took her to a secondary location, she was totally on her own.
“I borrowed a buddy’s hunting cabin. It’s isolated. We can have quality alone time.”
Over her dead body, which it would be, because there was no way she’d submit without a fight. Another scary growl. This time from in front of them. Cyrus had circled around, unless it was Zach. There was an outside possibility it was someone’s hunting dog, but she doubted it.
Wilkes fired a shot in the direction of the growl, grabbed her arm, and shoved her forward. “Move it or I’ll shoot you here.” He’d waited too long, gone to too much trouble to get revenge to simply end it here, but it was better not to test him. He was sweating, his gaze darting all around.
One second there was no one there, the next Cyrus stood in front of them, chest bloody, lips peeled back in a snarl with fangs flashing. He looked like he stepped off the pages of a horror novel. She’d never seen anything better in her life.
“Impossible,” Wilkes whispered.
“Get down,” Cyrus yelled. Vinnie dropped and rolled taking cover behind the thick trunk of an oak tree.