Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The words won’t make it to your driveway, filled Trent’s brain. They bounced around in his mind for a couple of seconds before they stuck. “What did you say?” he managed, as the rage began to bubble in his gut.
Courtney tapped her fingers on the papers sitting in the center of the table. “All you need to do is sign the purchase offer. Walk away with a good chunk of money in your pocket, and your freedom.”
“Or what, exactly?” Trent asked. “And where’s Dove?’
“She’s fine,” Dutton said. “And she’ll stay that way as long as you sign.”
Trent stood, knocking over the chair. He hit the table hard enough to rattle everything on it. "What did you do with her?" He stared at Dutton across the kitchen. "If you've hurt her, I swear to God—"
"Easy." His father rose and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged it off. “I’ll fucking kill him if anyone lays a hand on her.” He didn’t turn to look at his dad. He kept his gaze on Dutton.
Who dared to tilt his head and smirk, sitting in his chair like a man with nothing to prove and nothing to lose. He looked at his watch then toward the window. "She's fine." He lifted his chin toward the driveway. "Look. Here she comes."
Trent raced toward the sidedoor and curled his fingers around the knob.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Dutton said.
The sound of chairs scraping on the floor and footsteps shuffling grated on Trent’s ears. He turned, and his heart dropped to his toes. Dutton held a weapon to his father’s head. “You’re a fucking bastard.”
Courtney stood, pointing a gun at Trent. She held it steady while standing in his kitchen in her ridiculous four-inch heels.
“Step away from the door.” Courtney waved her pistol. “Go sit on the sofa.”
Trent lifted his hands and reluctantly did as instructed. He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t waving the white flag. He was just regrouping.
Dutton pushed his father out of the kitchen and into the family room. “You too, old man.”
Through the picture window, Trent watched two dark SUVs pull to a stop in the main parking area not far from the bridge. Men with guns slipped from the vehicles.
One of those men was Karl.
Trent clasped his hands in his lap. He felt his knuckles connecting with Karl’s face as if it were really happening.
Karl moved to the driver’s side rear and opened the door.
Dove eased out of the vehicle. Her hands were bound in front of her. She walked without being dragged—that was something. That was Dove—refusing to be pulled around like cargo.
“You alright?” his dad asked softly.
“Ask me again after she walks through that door.” Trent cracked his knuckles—something he hadn’t done in years.
The men in suits took various positions around the outside of the house. All five of them held automatic weapons. All of them kept their distance from the moat and bridge.
The side door opened, and Karl came through first, hand on Dove's arm, moving her into the family room the way you'd move something you owned. One of the armed men filed in behind them.
Trent locked gazes with Dove. However, a second later, his focus shifted to her left cheek. Blood had started to dry and crust on the side of her face. Bruising had formed on her cheek and around her eye.
He jumped from the sofa and was across the room before anyone could do anything about it.
Except Karl, who stepped in front of him, shoving a gun against his chest.
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Trent said behind gritted teeth.
“Go ahead.” Dutton waved his hand. “Give the love birds a minute. Can’t hurt.”
Karl moved, but not too far, and he kept his grubby fingers on her elbow. Asshole.
"Hey." He cupped Dove's face. She flinched when his fingers grazed her cheekbone, and his jaw locked so hard his back teeth ached.
“It’s not that bad.” She stared at him with steady eyes.
"Who hit you?"
“The SUV.”
“I’m serious.”
“Right now, it doesn’t matter.” Her voice was quiet, but it had an edge. “Before these guys jumped me, I saw the gator you patched up a little bit ago. The one you named Two-Stroke. He was headed out to the bay. Looked good.”
“I’m so glad.” Only, Trent had never named a gator Two-Stroke. Not to mention, he hadn’t patched one up in at least six weeks. Trent had to assume that was code for someone was out there watching. His best guess was that Cullen was out on the water.
He looked down at her hands and then turned to Dutton. "Untie her."
“Sure, why not,” Dutton said. “Go ahead, Karl. Cut her loose.”
“Are you crazy?” Karl asked. “She’s nuts, and she used to be a sniper.”
"She doesn’t have a gun. She’s not going anywhere. Not with the firepower that I brought. We’re fine," Dutton said.
Karl took out a pocket knife and cut her free. He took a few steps back and leaned against the wall by the side door, weapon in hand.
“Sit down, both of you,” Dutton said.
Trent took Dove by the hand and guided her to the sofa, wedging her between him and his father.
Courtney’s heels clicked on the floor as she placed the paperwork on the coffee table with a pen. “Time to sign.”
“I’m never gonna do that.” Trent kept his fingers laced tightly through Dove’s.
“Sign it, and we'll let you walk away with enough money to start over wherever you want,” Courtney said. “If you don’t, well, that’s a different story.”
“We’ll take the different story.” Jack sat up taller. “Because whatever it is, you’re not going to get away with it. Not this time.”
"We didn't want it to come to this. We really didn't. But you've made this more complicated than it needed to be, and now we're out of patience.” Dutton sat on the edge of the coffee table.
The one that had been his mother's. The same one that she’d kick his ass for anything other than his clean feet wrapped in equally clean socks being on it.
“Come to what?” Jack actually lifted his feet and placed them on that very coffee table like a man who'd been in worse situations and had made it out. Maybe because he had. “Because I don’t see a scenario where you come out smelling like roses, especially if you have to dispose of us.”
“If it comes to us having to do this the hard way,” Courtney said. “We don’t have to get rid of anything or anyone.”
"No?" Jack questioned. "Because you've got a bunch of armed men on private property, and I don't think they came here to admire the gators.
" He tilted his head. "The feds are already looking at Sovereign Resources.
That's not a rumor—that's a fact. Whatever case Slade was building, he gave them enough to start asking the right questions.
And Slade's murder?” Jack lifted his hand and stared at his nails like he was contemplating whether they needed trimming or not.
"You think that doesn't come back to you eventually? A former US Marshal, shot twice in a parking lot right before the world finds out my body wasn’t in that casket?
And let's not forget, you were one of the other few marshals tasked with my detail. People are already asking questions."
Courtney and Dutton stole a glance at each other. Whatever passed between them, Trent couldn't read.
Trent leaned forward, making eye contact with Dove, then his father.
Twenty years ago, his dad had been dead.
For twenty years, Trent had run this land either with his mother or alone.
They’d handled every hard thing that had come their their way because there’d been no one else.
And now here was his father, alive, sitting on the very sofa that Trent remembered him purchasing and carrying in from the truck.
And here was the woman Trent loved with a bruise and cut on her face, and there was no fucking way Trent was going to lose either one of them.
Not today.
Courtney folded her arms and tapped her toe on the floor.
“Everything is working out just fine," she said.
"You think the world finding out Jack is alive is a problem for us?
" She shook her head. "It's not. Because the world will also find out that he faked his death—ith the help of a sitting US Marshal.
" She paused and leaned closer. “Slade broke the law to hide a witness to a crime that never happened.
The courts would look at it as a fabrication for some kind of profit.
And Slade would've had to bribe at least one official, if not more, to make Jack's death look real. That’s gonna come back and bite someone in the ass.”
“Not me,” Jack said.
“Oh, but it’s not going help your case.” She smiled serenely.
“Especially when you’re dead, and/or missing—again.
I mean, twenty years later, it's all coming apart. You see, we can spin this any way we need to. Like, let’s say, Jack panicked because he didn’t want to be brought back from the dead.
Killed the one man who could expose him.
" She looked at Dove. "And this one—she discovered the truth.
Came to confront him. Had words with Trent.
And well…" She lifted one shoulder. “Crime of passion.
Or maybe an accident. You know how accidents can happen on properties like this. Everyone knows that."
“Wow. You’ve created quite the plan in a short period of time.
” Trent stared at her, a little in awe of the smooth, practiced way she'd assembled that story, the way every piece fit against every other piece like she'd been building it for a while. There were holes. But those holes might not need to be filled if there were no bodies, or if those bodies couldn’t speak for themselves.