Chapter 19
RAVEN
The zip ties bite into my wrists with every rut and dip, and Harlan is hitting all of them. He's driving too fast for terrain like this, the truck bottoming out through washouts and fishtailing on dirt that hasn't seen a grader in years.
He has both hands on the wheel, fighting the road. His service weapon sits on the dash in front of him, close enough for him to grab but far enough from me that reaching for it with bound hands would give him plenty of time to fight me off.
My head is pounding from where he slammed it into the doorframe when he dragged me out of the compound.
Blood runs warm down my left arm from the gash he opened first, and my right shoulder screams every time the truck bounces over uneven road, which is constant now.
The cuts he carved into my forearms with his knife are shallow but deliberate, the kind meant to hurt without doing real damage while Alvarez asked questions I refused to answer.
They'd only been at it for a few minutes before all hell broke loose.
The worst part hadn't been the knife or the zip ties. It had been Alvarez. The way he strolled out among cartel operatives with the easy authority of a man who'd been doing this for years. Knowing he was dirty was one thing. Watching him nod to Harlan to begin cutting was something else entirely.
The compound is behind us now, the gunfire fading to occasional pops in the distance.
I saw Beckett wrestle Alvarez to the ground before Harlan hauled me through a side door I hadn't noticed.
The assault had already been in full swing when he shoved me into his truck and tore out along a dirt road that ran behind the property.
He knows these roads the way only a man who has spent decades patrolling them could, and he's using that knowledge now to stay ahead of Jesse.
Jesse will come. I know that with the same certainty I know my own name, and I hold onto it because right now it's the only thing keeping the panic from swallowing me whole.
Cipher is almost certainly overhead with the drone, and the transmitters wired into my shoe and hair piece are still in place.
Harlan searched me, found the watch and the earrings, and crushed them both under his boot on the compound's gravel drive.
But he didn't think to check the soles of my shoes or the hair piece, and that arrogance is going to cost him.
If Jesse gets here in time.
I shove that thought down hard and focus on what I can control. Keep Harlan talking. Keep him rattled. A man running his mouth is a man not thinking clearly, and right now his lack of clarity is the only advantage I've got.
"You're awfully quiet for a woman in your situation," Harlan says, his eyes fixed on the road.
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
My heart is hammering so hard I'm surprised he can't hear it. I keep my voice level anyway, because the only weapon I have left is his fear. "About how many seconds you have left before Jesse Hollister puts a bullet through this windshield."
Harlan snarls and swerves around a dip. The truck accelerates, and the terrain is getting rougher. Scrub cedar and live oak crowd the shoulders until the road narrows to a single lane of packed dirt.
"Jesse's a little busy right now, sweetheart. Last I saw, his people were getting shot at from three directions."
"We have someone tracking every transmitter on me right now." I force the words out steady even though my hands are shaking, buried in my lap where he can't see them. "Jesse doesn't need to figure out where you went. He already knows."
"Shut up." His voice drops low and vicious. "You think this changes anything? Twenty years I ran that county."
Every word out of his mouth is a confession I can use, if I survive long enough to use it.
"You murdered Tom Pritchard with a taser and a tractor." My voice wavers on Pritchard's name, and I clench my bound fists until the zip ties bite deeper, using the pain to steady myself. "I saw the whole thing."
Harlan's hands twitch on the wheel before he steadies them. "Pritchard was a loose end. He got nosy, started poking around where he shouldn't have. Just like you."
"We have the video, Harlan. The surveillance footage from Pritchard's cameras.
Cloud backup you didn't know existed." I watch his profile in the dim glow of the dashboard, gambling everything on the hope that fear will make him stupid instead of violent.
"We recovered it days ago. Every federal agent at that compound right now knows you walked into that barn, committed a cold-blooded murder, and staged an accident. "
The silence stretches long enough for me to hear his breathing change. Faster. Shallow. His knuckles go white on the steering wheel. Mine are already white, but I keep my face still and force myself not to flinch.
"Won't matter," he says finally. "None of it matters.
You think you took down a pipeline tonight?
You cut off one head and ten more are waiting.
" His laugh is bitter, airless. "I didn't rebuild what Bo Hollister started.
I improved it. Used every route, every contact, every staging point that old bastard set up.
His own son couldn't see what was right under his nose because he was too busy playing soldier and pretending to be better than his daddy. "
"What else are you running besides guns?"
"You have no idea." Harlan's voice loosens now, anger overriding whatever caution he had left.
"The money laundering through the casinos up in Oklahoma.
The distribution network running product through half of Central Texas.
You think Alvarez was the only fed on the payroll?
" He shakes his head. "Little girl, you don't even know how deep this goes.
You ripped out one root and the rest of the tree is still standing. "
I file every word, burning it into memory. Harlan is unraveling, his anger loosening his tongue the way fear never would.
The truck slows as the road dead-ends at a cattle gate.
Harlan kills the engine and grabs the gun off the dash, then sits for a moment, staring through the windshield at nothing.
In the sudden quiet, I can hear crickets and the tick of the cooling engine and my own pulse hammering against my eardrums.
"Get out." He motions with the gun.
I work the door handle with my bound hands and step down from the cab. The ground is uneven, rocky, mesquite and cedar pressing in close under an afternoon sun that bakes everything flat. My legs are unsteady beneath me, and I lock my knees to keep from swaying.
"On your knees."
I don't move. Not out of courage. My body has simply frozen, every muscle locked tight against the command because some animal part of my brain understands that if I kneel on this gravel, I'm not getting back up.
"I said on your knees." His voice cracks on the last word.
He's panicking now, cornered and desperate, and desperate men are the most dangerous kind.
"You want to play tough? You can play tough in the dirt.
You're just a girl who got in way over her head, just like your uncle did.
Martin Bishop thought he could outsmart Bo Hollister, and look what happened to him. "
The mention of Uncle Martin sends ice through my veins, followed immediately by a fury hot enough to burn through the fear. "Don't you say his name."
"Why not? I was there when Bo made that call. I was the one who made sure the sheriff's office looked the other way. Your uncle died because he was too stubborn to know when he was beaten." Harlan steps closer, the gun leveling at my face. "Just like you."
The glare of a windshield cuts through the cedar from the road behind us. Harlan spins, his arm swinging wide as he tries to track the approaching vehicle and keep the gun on me at the same time. Tires crunch over gravel and a truck comes to a hard stop thirty feet away.
Jesse steps out of the driver's side, and the relief hits so hard my knees nearly buckle. Everything I've been holding in place with stubbornness and spite threatens to crack wide open at the sight of him.
He doesn't rush. He moves with the measured deliberation of a man who has put down targets at a thousand yards and can certainly handle one at thirty feet.
His sidearm is already drawn, held low against his thigh, and even from here I can see the cold calculation in those pale blue eyes.
Not anger. Something worse. The quiet, focused intent of a predator who's already decided how this ends and is simply choosing the moment.
"Let her go, Harlan." His voice is flat and stripped of everything except intent, the way a blade is stripped of everything except edge.
"Stay back." Harlan grabs my arm and yanks me in front of him, pressing the muzzle against my temple. His hand is shaking badly enough that I can feel the barrel trembling against my skin. "I'll do it. You know I will."
"I know you’re a coward. You murdered a man with a taser and a tractor because you didn't have the nerve to use a bullet.
" Jesse's gaze doesn't flicker to me. It stays locked on Harlan with the flat patience of a man who has all the time in the world and no intention of giving any of it.
"So go ahead. Pull that trigger. See what happens in the next half second of your life. "
"Coward? Your daddy needed me. He couldn't move a single crate without my roads, my contacts, my cover. I'm the reason the Hollister name meant anything beyond a bunch of inbred ranchers playing cowboy."
"My father's dead. His operation's dead.
And right now, your coordinates have been relayed to every federal vehicle within fifty miles.
" Jesse takes one step closer, unhurried, his sidearm still held low against his thigh like he doesn't even need it.
"You've got no extraction, no backup, and no play.
Let her go and I'll make sure you make it to a courtroom instead of a body bag. "