Chapter 32
MORGAN
The van's tires shrieked as Silas took another corner too fast, throwing Morgan against the side panel.
She barely felt the impact or registered the pain that shot through her shoulder.
Her mind was still back at that house, still seeing Harper's terrified face, still feeling the weight of the knife in her hand.
I was so close.
The adrenaline was starting to fade now, three miles from the house, replaced by a manic energy that made her want to scream.
Her hands were shaking, not with fear, but with rage.
Explosive rage that Harper had escaped again.
That Connor had found her again. That everything had fallen apart again like it always did.
I had the knife to her throat. She was mine and I let her go.
“Slow down,” Armand said from the passenger seat, his voice tight with pain. Blood seeped through the sleeve where Morgan had cut him, staining the fabric dark red. “You're going to get us pulled over.”
“We need distance,” Silas said, but he eased off the accelerator slightly. His eyes kept flicking to the rearview mirror, watching for pursuit with that infuriating calm he always had. “They'll have every unit in the county looking for this van.”
“Then we ditch it.” Armand pressed his hand harder against his bleeding arm, his face pale. “Switch vehicles. Get off the main roads.”
Morgan barely heard them. She was staring at her still trembling hands that had smears of Harper's blood on her fingers from where the knife had cut her throat. There wasn’t enough blood, there should be more. All of it should have been pooling on the basement floor.
I should have just done it. Cut deep and watched her bleed out before they could stop me. One quick slice and it would have been over. Harper dead. Connor devastated. Everything fixed.
But she'd hesitated. That split second of hesitation, of thinking she could use Harper as a hostage instead of just ending it right there, had cost her everything.
Again.
“We need a plan,” Armand said, turning to look at Morgan in the back. “Boss, we need to figure out where we're going. Your father has contacts in Colorado. We could—”
“We're going back.” Morgan's voice cut through his planning, sharp and certain.
Silence filled the van like a physical presence.
“What?” Silas's eyes found hers in the rearview mirror.
“We're going back.” Morgan leaned forward, her voice rising with manic energy that she could hear but couldn't control.
“Back to that house. Back to finish what we started. Harper is probably still there, probably giving statements to the police. We go back, we wait for them to leave, and we finish the job.”
“Are you insane?” Armand twisted in his seat to stare at her like she'd grown a second head. “Morgan, they know who we are. They have our descriptions. Every cop in Wyoming is looking for us right now. Going back would be suicide.”
“I don't care.” And she didn't. The realization settled over her with a strange calm.
She didn't care about the consequences anymore.
Didn't care about arrest or prison or death.
All she cared about was making Harper pay for stealing everything that should have been Morgan's.
“She ruined everything. And you want me to just run away and let her win?”
“She already won,” Silas said flatly. “Morgan, it's over. The house is compromised. Our identities are known. The feds are probably already involved. The smart play is to get as far from Wyoming as possible and disappear.”
“No.” Morgan's voice dropped to something cold and deadly, the voice her father used when he was done negotiating. “The smart play is to eliminate the witness. Harper knows too much. About my father, about the organization, and about the trafficking. As long as she's alive, she's a threat.”
“Then your father's people can handle her later,” Armand said. “When things cool down and there's less heat. But right now—”
“Right now, I need her dead!” Morgan was shouting now, her voice filling the van, manic and desperate.
Completely out of control. “Don't you understand? This is the only way to fix this. The only way to salvage anything from this disaster. We kill Harper, we eliminate the primary witness, we buy ourselves—”
“We buy ourselves nothing,” Silas interrupted.
His voice was still calm, still controlled, but there was an edge to it now that made Morgan's skin prickle.
“Morgan, listen to me. Going back accomplishes nothing except getting us all killed or arrested.
The feds will know about the trafficking.
I never found Emma and her testimony will do more than enough damage on its own. Harper's death doesn't change that.”
“But she's the one who,” Morgan's voice cracked, tears burning behind her eyes. “She's the one who ruined everything. She doesn't get to just walk away. She doesn't get to live happily ever after with Connor while my life falls apart.”
She doesn't get to have the life I worked for.
“Your life fell apart the moment you involved yourself personally,” Silas said, and there was something in his voice now.
Judgment, maybe, or just cold assessment.
“This was supposed to be business. A property acquisition. But you made it personal and got obsessed with revenge instead of focusing on the objective.”
“Don't you dare—” Morgan lunged forward, but Armand caught her arm.
“He's right,” Armand said quietly, and the betrayal of it made Morgan want to scream. “Morgan, Silas is right. This stopped being about your father's operation weeks ago. This became about you hating Harper. About you losing Connor. And that obsession just cost us everything.”
Morgan stared at him, her chest heaving, her vision blurring with tears of rage and frustration. “You don't understand. You don't know what it's like to have everything taken from you. To watch someone else get the life you were supposed to have—”
“I understand that you're a liability now,” Silas said. The words hung in the air, cold and final.
Morgan's blood turned to ice. “What did you say?”
“I said you're a liability.” Silas's eyes met hers in the rearview mirror, emotionless and calculating like she was a problem to be solved.
“You've lost control. You're making decisions based on emotion instead of strategy.
You almost killed a pregnant woman in front of law enforcement.
You've exposed the entire operation because of a personal vendetta.”
“How dare you—”
“Your father is going to want answers,” Silas continued as if she hadn't spoken. “About how this went so wrong. About why we're running instead of completing the objective. About why his daughter went rogue and brought federal attention to his organization.”
Morgan's heart was pounding now, a different kind of fear mixing with her rage like poison. “My father will understand. When I explain—”
“Explain what?” Silas took a turn off the main highway onto a dirt road, gravel pinging against the undercarriage. “That you prioritized revenge over business? That you risked his operation, his people, his freedom because you couldn't handle a breakup?”
“It wasn't about the breakup—”
“Then what was it about?” Silas's voice was still calm, but there was steel underneath.
“Because from where I'm sitting, you had one job.
To secure the Whitaker property or eliminate the obstacles.
You did neither. Instead, you focused all your energy on hurting Harper. And now we're all paying for it.”
The van slowed, turning onto an even rougher road. Trees pressed in on both sides, and shadows lengthened as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. The temperature was dropping with it, making Morgan shiver.
“Where are we going?” Morgan asked, some survival instinct finally kicking through the rage fog.
“Somewhere we can regroup,” Silas said. “We can figure out the next steps without cops breathing down our necks.”
They drove in tense silence for another five minutes, the road deteriorated from dirt to barely a track that rattled Morgan's teeth with every bump.
Then she saw an old warehouse, probably abandoned decades ago when whatever logging or mining operation it served had shut down.
It had rusted metal siding, a roof partially collapsed, and the windows were long gone. Isolated and forgotten.
A perfect place to hide. Or the perfect place to die. The thought came unbidden, making her shiver harder.
Silas pulled the van behind the warehouse out of sight from the road and killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine and distant bird calls.
“We’ll wait here until dark,” Silas said, climbing out. “Then we ditch the van and find another vehicle before we head for the border.”
Morgan followed him out on unsteady legs. Armand came around from the passenger side, still holding his bleeding arm, his face pale and sheened with sweat.
The warehouse's interior was exactly what she expected.
An empty space filled with debris, rusted equipment, and evidence of animals nesting in corners.
It smelled musty and damp, with undertones of rot and rust that made her gag.
Light streamed through holes in the roof, painting everything in dusty gold.
“This is insane,” Armand said, leaning against a support beam like he might collapse without it. “We're fugitives now. Federal fugitives. The FBI is going to be involved. Interpol if we try to cross into Canada or Mexico. Morgan, we need to contact your father and get his help. He has resources.”
“Yes.” Silas pulled out his phone. “Let's call Victor. See what he thinks about today's developments.”
Something in his tone made Morgan's skin prickle with warning. “Silas, maybe we should wait—”