Chapter 1
Cade
I’m gonna kill him,I thought as my phone rang with the North Woods Law theme song. Fucking Brycen and his technologically-inclined antics. All he had to do was replace the damn busted GPS chip in my phone and hand it back. I should have known the son of a bitch would play around.
“Yeah?” was my gruff answer.
“It’s Rex.”
“What’s up?”
“Need your help with one of my skips.”
Rex Dunham was a bounty hunter. When he wasn’t busy chasing down criminals, he was helping Dalton Kippers and the rest of us part-timers—myself included—at Nightshade Securities Inc, or NSI.
“What do you have?” I asked.
Rex went on giving me the GPS coordinates to where he was, and I swallowed hard when he mentioned I’d most likely need my rappelling equipment since the idiot was halfway down a rock face, stuck in a crevasse.
“Hurry,” the man urged.
I snorted. The guy was in a remote area. It was going to take me at least an hour to get to where he was, half of it lugging my pack and being on foot.
“The guy’s not going anywhere, my friend.”
“That’s what you think. Fucker’s so slimy I wouldn’t put it past him to find a way out of there,” he replied. “Just look for my tank,” he referred to his large black Suburban.
“Out in five,” I said, then hung up, shoving my phone back in my pocket. “Renegade!”
As his training dictated, my German shepherd came barreling toward me as I grabbed my radio off its charging base and jammed it in its rightful pocket of my backpack. The dog sat at my feet, hyperfocused and awaiting my next command.
“We’ve got work to do, bud.” Cue the swishing tail, the only thing denoting his excitement. My boy loved to work.
As predicted, an hour and a few minutes later, I saw Rex’s lone form standing with his back to me.
“About fucking time, asshole,” he grumped.
“Pipe down, bitch. I’m here to save your ass, aren’t I? Just be glad I’m not asking you for a cut of the profits.” Lord knows he makes a killing with his own business, which always made me wonder why he’d even take up the extra gigs for NSI.
The man smirked, then grinned down when Renegade trotted up to him, nudging his hand.
“Hey, boy,” he greeted, scratching my furry partner behind the ears. “He’s about fifteen feet behind me, down about—I’d say—ten to twelve feet.”
Nodding my head in understanding, I left Rex and Renegade to finish greeting one another while I approached the rather crumbly ledge of the cliff. Looking over, I spotted the guy.
“You alright down there?” I hollered.
“Fuck you!” was his answer.
Snorting my distaste for the man already, I set my backpack down and began pulling out my harness, some rope and carabiners. “You’ve got a gem there, Rex.”
“You assholes done commiserating up there?” the idiot bellowed. “I’d like to get out of here before the vultures get to me.”
“Pipe down, fuckhole!” Rex snarked, then turned to me. “Because that’s exactly what he’ll be when the boys in the pen find out what he’s being locked up for.”
I didn’t want to know. I’d seen far too much bad shit in my thirty-seven years to need another mental picture to cloud over what little shroud of light I still had in my life.
As soon as I’d gone over the edge, I should have known something wasn’t right. Renegade never whined when we worked—unless something was wrong.
That was my first hint.
The second came in the form of a thump up above and a muffled groan while I was prying Rex’s skip’s ankle free. Nothing but a fucking scratch, the bastard. He’d been lucky.
By the time I’d gotten to the top of the ledge, ignoring the raised hairs on the back of my neck, it wasn’t long before I regretted my good Samaritan act.
Within seconds, Randall What’s-his-face had been pulled up to safety, then I witnessed a large body fly over my head.
Next, I was the one plummeting downward…
The last thing I saw—or what I thought I saw—was a bear of a man.
No, that can’t be right.
And the final thing I heard was Renegade howling off in the distance.
Then everything went black.