Chapter 21
Kayden
My arm was on fire, and I was bleeding through the fresh dressing Sapphire had wrapped, but I shoved that shit out of my head. Those gunshots and the screams we’d heard meant something else had gone down in that cave. And it wasn’t good.
Sapphire stopped at the base of a massive outcropping and studied the terrain ahead, her hand gripping her Glock and every muscle in her body wired tight.
Christ, she was something to watch. The young woman I’d loved all those years ago was still in there somewhere, but the woman pointing that Glock at the cave was someone else entirely.
The gunfire had been quiet for a while now. Ten minutes. Maybe more. Whatever had happened in there was over.
“We’ve heard nothing for too long,” Sapphire said. “Could mean Frank’s down or everyone in there.”
“Or Bob’s in there waiting on us,” I said.
“Yeah. I need to get in that cave.” She glanced at Mitch. “Mitch, I want you manning the entrance. If anyone but us comes out, you call it. There could be another way out of that cave, and I don’t want that bastard coming around and trapping us inside.”
“Roger that,” Mitch said.
“Cassidy, you stay with Mitch.”
“Hell, no. I’m not staying out here,” Cassidy said.
“Cass.” Sapphire fixed her with a look. “I need you and Mitch covering our backs.”
Cassidy’s jaw worked, but she nodded.
“Kayden, you’re with me.”
I raised a brow. “Thought you were gonna make me wait out here, too.”
“Frank’s more likely to talk to a Branson than a cop. If he’s still alive in there, I want you next to me when he sees us coming.”
“Right. Let’s do this.” I gripped my rifle.
“Hey, watch yourselves.” Cassidy clutched my wrist. “And don’t get shot again.”
I winked at her. “Don’t plan on it.”
Mitch and Cassidy moved off to the rocks on the eastern side. Sapphire watched them go, then turned to me.
“Stay one step behind me, and don’t go getting all trigger-happy. Bob and Frank are mine. Got it?”
“Got it.”
As we moved forward, loose stones crunched under our boots, no matter how careful we were. Sapphire stayed low, weapon up, eyes on every shadow. I stuck close behind her, covering her six.
A moan reached us as we got to the cave mouth.
Wet and horrible. The sound of a man who wasn’t going to last.
Sapphire held up one hand, and we froze, listening. The moan came again, weaker this time. But there was nothing else. No voices. No movement. No second man breathing.
She glanced at me. I nodded.
She moved forward, weapon raised, and I followed her into the cave.
It took my eyes a moment to adjust. The cave was bigger than I’d expected, with a high roof I couldn’t see in the gloom. A few shafts of sun cut down through cracks in the rock and caught the dust hanging in the air.
A bloody body lay just inside the entrance: Lyle Henderson.
He was on his back, both hands clutched to his stomach, blood soaking through his fingers and spreading in a black pool beneath him. His face was gray, his eyes glassy and unfocused.
“Jesus,” I breathed.
Sapphire ran to him and checked him for weapons with one hand while keeping her gun trained deeper into the cave. A rifle lay a foot from Lyle’s hip. She kicked it back behind her, well out of his reach.
As she watched the cave, I crouched beside Lyle. “Lyle, can you hear me?”
He moaned but didn’t answer.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Sapphire said. “Stay with me, Kayden.”
We moved deeper into the cave. Smells of bat shit and gun powder laced the air. Sapphire’s flashlight cut through the dim light and swept across the floor.
A rusted forty-gallon drum sat in the middle of the cave.
“Kayden.” Sapphire’s whisper was sharp. Her flashlight was on a shape on the ground twenty feet away.
Frank.
We raced toward him. He was face-down in a spreading pool of his own blood, one arm stretched out toward a shotgun that lay six feet away.
His other hand was wrapped in filthy, blood-soaked cloths.
He’d been shot in the shoulder and lower back, just below his belt.
Dark, thick blood oozed from both wounds.
Sapphire kept one eye on the deepest section of the cave as she frisked him fast, careful of his bloody wounds. Her hand came out from under his hip with a revolver. She froze for a half-second, then turned it over in her palm.
She checked the cylinder. “Empty,” she said.
“It’s Bob’s,” Frank wheezed.
Sapphire dropped onto one knee so she could see his face. “Talk to me.”
“Bob wanted me to get rid of it years ago. Bet you anythin’ that gun’s killed some poor bastard. Call it a partin’ gift from me.”
Sapphire’s jaw tightened. She put the gun on a rock in clear view.
With her weapon aimed at the darkness ahead, she leaned forward. “Frank, where’s Bob?”
He turned his head toward us, and his bloodshot eyes opened. Even half-dead in the dirt, the bastard still had fight in him.
“Finish me,” he rasped. “Kill me.”
“Where’s Bob?” Sapphire repeated.
Frank’s breathing was crackly and shallow as he lifted one shaky finger and pointed toward the back of the cave.
I couldn’t see anything but darkness and bats.
Sapphire stood and peered into the distance. “I’m going after him.”
“I’m coming with you.” I reached for her, but she slipped her arm away, and the look she gave me shut me up. No anger. No fear. This was the job she had to do.
“Stay with Frank. Do not let him die. He has to pay for every fucking thing he’s done.”
“Got it.”
She squeezed my arm once, then raised her Glock and flashlight together in a two-handed grip. The beam cut through the dark, and she moved fast toward the back of the cave. I watched her disappear behind a rocky outcrop.
Pride hit me hard. Christ, that woman.
Then it was just me and Frank.
And Lyle moaning at the cave mouth.
I stood over my father. I’d never looked down on him before.
Now, I stood, reflecting on my entire damn life of being told I was useless, of years of his fists, his cruelty, and his smug bullshit. He’d killed my chance of joining the army—him and his fucking mate, Bob. Between them, they’d taken the only thing I’d dreamed of doing.
“Shoot me,” Frank rasped. “Kayden, don’t leave me like this.”
“Fuck you.”
“You owe me—”
“I owe you nothing.” My tone was so cold I barely recognized it. “Not a single fucking thing.”
I crouched down where he could see me. “You sabotaged my army application.”
His eyes didn’t meet mine.
“Look at me, you bastard. You got Bob to dump fake reports into the system. You destroyed my army career before it started.”
“Was for your own good.”
“Shut up.” My hands shook. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me what was good for me.”
“Koolaroo needed you.”
“Koolaroo never needed me. You did. You needed somebody to dump on when Mitch took off. You let me carry that rejection for years. I thought I’d failed at the only thing I ever wanted. But the whole time it was you. It was always you.”
He didn’t answer. He lowered his gaze to the dirt.
I was breathing hard. “You took that from me.”
Frank coughed and a bubble of blood came up at the corner of his mouth.
“You raised us to hate cops to keep us from ever going to one. You self-serving prick.”
“I did it for you,” he wheezed. “Always for you.”
Rage blazed through me, and I stood so fast my vision went white at the edges. I wanted to put my boot through his face. One stomp for every name he’d called me. One stomp for the army. One stomp for believing I was the failure he’d told me I was.
He looked up at me, and his eyes were almost peaceful. Like he wanted me to end him. Like dying by my boot would be the last bastardry he ever pulled, turning his own son into a killer just like him.
Footsteps echoed through the gravel behind me.
“Kayden,” Sapphire’s voice filtered through my rage.
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t. My boot hovered an inch from Frank’s temple, and the muscles in my leg were locked.
“Kayden, calm down.”
“He sabotaged my army application.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. “He let me believe I was useless.”
“I know.”
“He stole my dream.”
“I know, Kayden. He’s not getting away with anything. I promise you.”
She wrapped her hands around my arm, holding me, leaning close enough that I could smell her sweat and the dust on her clothes.
“He wants me to end him.” My voice cracked.
“Yes, he does. Don’t give him what he wants. That’s too easy for him. He needs to pay.”
The whole of my chest was trying to come apart, and Frank was watching me with his fucking bloodshot eyes, knowing that he still controlled me.
“Kayden.” She cupped my chin. “Look at me.”
I swept my gaze to her.
“You’re not him,” she said. “You never were.”
My body shook hard.
“Hey, he hasn’t taken everything from you. You still have me.”
Her hair was matted with dust. Sweat had cut clean tracks through the dirt on her temples. She looked wrecked.
And she looked at me like I was the answer to the worst day of her life.
Christ. She needs me to get my shit together.
I swallowed hard and sat down on a sandstone rock, put my head in my hands, and tried to breathe.
Sapphire crouched in front of me, her hand resting on my knee. “Hey, talk to me.”
“Did you kill Bob?” I asked into my hands.
“He got away. There’s a back exit. By the time I got through it, he was gone.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
I looked over at Frank. Every breath he took sounded wet and wrong. And painful. Good. That bastard deserved every bit of agony.
“Hey.” She cupped my chin and turned my face back to hers. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Fire.” I dragged in a long breath and felt the rage start to bleed off. “We should get the others.”
Sapphire tapped my leg. “Come help me.” She stood and crossed to the cave mouth. “Mitch! Cassidy! We’re clear.”
I pushed off the rock and ran toward Lyle.
Mitch and Cassidy stormed into the cave, both with weapons up until they saw us.
The four of us met next to Lyle.
“Jesus, Lyle. What the fuck were you thinking?” Mitch said.
Sapphire shot Mitch a look.
“Where’s Frank?” Cassidy asked.
“He’s past the drum. Bob shot him in the back,” I said.
“Fuck. Is he dead?” Cassidy gasped.
“Not yet,” I said.
“But Lyle’s worse,” Sapphire said. “He’s the priority.”