20. Chapter 17 - Kellan
H illary Lane was truly going to be the death of me.
How many times had I covered for her ass with the Bureau when her vendetta went a little too far? How many times did I tell her this revenge mission was a bad idea? Why the fuck did I continue to protect her when she was impossible to protect from herself?
I knew the answers to these questions, but I wasn’t going to waste time thinking about my feelings when I was knee deep in snow, trying to track some woman she’d deemed worthy of her mountainside prison.
A woman. It was the first time I’d ever seen a woman within these walls, and it’d surprised me when I’d watched the fo otage of Sammy taking her in. I trusted Sammy’s judgment and knew he wouldn’t harm a woman if she was innocent, so I had to trust Hillary knew what she was doing with this one.
As soon as this woman was back in her cell, Hillary was going to give me some answers. All the answers. We didn’t have time for any more secrets between us—especially when this little midnight tryst had already put our entire mission at risk.
Luckily, the deep snow was on my side, the woman’s trail easy to follow up the mountain pass; but she was surprisingly quick, given she’d only had about a twenty-minute head start.
Twenty minutes in great conditions might as well be two hours—but in the middle of the night in the middle of January? I should have found her by now. Her limbs would be frozen stiff, seeing as she wouldn’t have any winter clothes on, but adrenaline was powerful. Evidently, powerful enough to get a massive jump on me.
The trail of footprints led through an icy gully and into another part of the forest before ending where the treed landscape met the main road.
Fuck. Left or right?
There weren’t any notable markers out here in the mountains—it would be impossible for someone to have their bearings without the help of a phone or GPS.
My FBI tracking training kicked in; research showed that when faced with a fork in the road, the brain was more likely to choose a right turn than a left turn.
So, right it was. I sure as fuck hoped the Bureau’s data was up to date, and that this woman wasn’t an anomaly in her thinking.
I hunched my shoulders and lowered my body, racing along the shoulder of the road to appear smaller; the moonlight guided my way. The only vehicles driving this segmen t at this time of night would be long-haul truckers. A truck stop was just a few miles from here.
If she’d already hitchhiked with a well-intentioned trucker, we were fucked.
I upped my pace, determined to find my Killer’s captive before she could ruin the woman I so desperately needed in my life. Instinct took over, and I abandoned every cynical thought in my head, pumping my legs as fast as they’d take me, while still scanning both sides of the road for any signs of life or disruption.
Rounding the bend in the road, I came upon the lit-up parking lot of the trucker’s diner and refueling station. Luckily, it wasn’t a large rest stop. If she was here, I should be able to find her easily.
Unluckily, that meant I wasn’t able to hide well, either.
I slowed my pace and nonchalantly strode through the pumps, heading toward the diner itself.
A bell chimed as I entered through the glass doors. I offered a friendly smile to the attendant scrolling through their phone at the convenience counter, but she barely looked up to give me a second glance.
Good—the less anyone paid attention to me here, the better. I scanned the diner to the right of the doorway. Only two tables had patrons, and none of them were women. I was about to head back to the washrooms when the conversation of a mid-fifties trucker and the server at the front cash caught my attention.
“I’ll need two cups of coffee and two of your breakfasts, Brenda.” His graying brows knitted together before he added, “And a doughnut, too. I’ve got a straggler on board and she’s going to need some medical attention, so I’m taking her into the city. Gave her my phone to call her family in the truck.”
Fuck. I’d bet my entire cartel fortune the woman he was being a Good Samaritan for was the same woman I was after.
The man waited at the counter while Brenda got busy with the order. It was now or never. I turned on my heel and assessed the parking lot. Three long-haul trailers.
Crouching low, I ran between them, hauling myself up quickly on the step plate to peer inside each cab. The third truck, the one parked farthest away from the diner, was the ticket.
A haggard blonde woman wrapped in a blanket peered back at me, her eyes wide with fright. I held a finger to my lips, and took out my FBI badge, holding it to the glass of the window. She stared at it, her face lighting with recognition. Frantically, she opened the door to speak to me.
“Sorry to scare you, ma’am.” I put the badge back in my pocket. “Your friend called the FBI, and I was already in the area tonight. Are you okay?”
Anyone with two brain cells would know the scenario was unlikely—why would an FBI agent be in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night?—but she was scared, vulnerable, and desperate.
If there was a hell, my actions tonight would absolutely cinch my invitation.
Her teeth chattered violently, but she spoke through them.
“F-fr-fro-frozen.” She shivered enough to mimic an epileptic seizure and fell into my arms when I offered her a hand.
“Come with me.” I issued the command in my most soothing tone, the one used to coax confessions out of trained killers. “I’ll get you somewhere safe and then we can talk.”
I was running out of time. Breakfast didn’t take long to cook, and if the trucker was a good guy, he’d be rushing to get back to make sure his damsel in distress was okay.
She took my hand. I guided her down the steep step of the truck, leading her to the other side of the diner building where I wouldn’t be in sight of any cameras. The steep inclin e to our right looked like my only escape option, and I cursed at the stupidity of the plan forming in my mind. My body would be wrecked tomorrow.
Without warning, I bundled her in my arms, cradled her head, and clamped a firm hand over her mouth to muffle her scream. I threw us off the side of the hill, our bodies bouncing and rolling into the thick brush below.
Agony ripped through my right thigh where a sharp rock punctured through my pants and into the muscle tissue, but I didn’t let go. I’d suffer a thousand puncture wounds to secure this woman if it meant keeping Hillary safe.
When we came to a full stop, I wrapped my hands around her neck in a sleeper hold, knocking her unconscious before she could attempt to run away. Under the blanket, she was wearing barely anything at all—a thin cotton t-shirt and pajama pants—and her toes were already turning purple with frostbite.
I bundled her into the blanket like a sausage roll and carried her over my shoulder. My thigh ached with sharp pain with every step. At six miles away from Hill’s warehouse, it would take me over an hour to return in these conditions.
My companion wouldn’t be unconscious for an hour. I had another few seconds, at best. I dropped her to the snow and hovered over her body, waiting for her to return to the land of the living.
The thick tree line protected us from view, so even if the friendly trucker were to look over the cliff side, he wouldn’t be able to see us. I hoped he’d think she got scared off and simply disappeared.
Not my problem. She was my problem, and she’d presumably made a phone call. Which meant Hillary could be fucked.
If Hillary was fucked, we were all fucked.
She came to with a jolt and a startled cry as she whipped her head around in confusion. Her watery gaze landed on me, the stark reflection of betrayal in her eyes.
Before she could get out a word, I crouched beside her, my large body looming over her frail, shivering form.
“Before we go any further, I’m going to need a few answers.”
I stared through her, my lips curled into a snarl of disgust like she was a piece of dog shit under an expensive shoe. She cowered beneath me, exhausted, and likely near hypothermia. Her one shot at freedom had been taken from her within seconds.
“Who did you call just now?”
A determined glint entered her eyes, and she made a show of clamping her lips shut, as if realizing there wasn’t a chance in hell she was ever making it back home.
“Dying of hypothermia is a peaceful way to go.” I fingered the edge of the blanket, tugging it away from her skin.
The steely resolve faltered when I took her only source of security. But it was replaced by bitter, feral hatred. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this woman.
Stubbornness in the face of death was valiant by some, stupid by others. For her, it was stupid.
Releasing a long puff of breath into the freezing air, I hauled out my phone and dialed Hillary’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“Rodriguez has the man,” I growled into the receiver. “I have the woman.”
“Oh, thank god.” The relief in her voice was palpable. Pride made its way into my heart, knowing I could give this to her. That I had kept her safe.
“I need to know what she did.” I shifted the phone between my neck and shoulder as I hauled the woman up from her perch on the snow. Pushing her in front of me, I urged her on frostbitten feet forward through the trees ahead of us.
I’d never killed a woman before—not intentionally as a premeditated murder. If today was going to be the first, I needed to be damn well sure she deserved the bullet through her heart.
“She sent four children in protection back to Alvarez’s people.” Hillary’s tone was clipped, the rage in her voice filtering through the phone line and settling deep into my belly. “And she was going to send more.”
Familiar darkness ballooned in my brain, taking over all of my senses with the primal need to kill.
“Still dead or alive?” I asked, watching the woman’s head snap back at the question, like a rabbit sensing the wolf right behind her. She took off— ‘at a run’ would be a stretch, given she hobbled over the thorny landscape—but she clearly read the writing on the wall.
“Yes.” Hillary’s answer was quick and fierce, the permission I needed to rid the world of another piece of filth.
I watched the limping woman run desperately away from me, practically tasting her terror on the air.
“Got it. I’ll see you back at the ranch.”
I hung up and stuffed the phone back into my pocket. Pulling out Old Faithful and its silencer, I screwed it on tight, watching the little rabbit get further and further away.
Throwing the blanket over my shoulder, I took off after her, gaining ground within seconds. She pushed on, tearing her t-shirt against bare branches and stumbling into the crunchy snow at her feet.
I held out the gun to aim at her skull, not needing her to turn around. I didn’t need see the light leave her eyes; I took no pleasure in this kill. My only gratification from her death was to protect the woman I loved.
My finger released the trigger, and the muffled shot exited the chamber and entered the soft tissue of her brain. Her body went stiff, even as it sagged to the ground.
I pocketed the gun and drew out my knife. Slicing long cuts down her arms and torso, I let the smell of fresh blood carry on the wind. Wolves or cougars would ensure all evidence was gone by morning.
Sticky wetness coated my pant leg. I looked down to my thigh bleeding into the fabric of my jeans. Before I could bleed out into the snow and leave a trail for some wayward sap to follow, I ripped a strip from the blanket and tied it around my leg in the best makeshift tourniquet I could manage. Then I buried the rest of the blanket underneath her body.
I left the scene of the crime immediately and followed my compass back to Hillary’s bunker. A full ninety minutes later, I was back at my Jeep. Hillary’s Jaguar was parked haphazardly at the building’s entrance.
They’d made it back in record time; I hadn’t expected her for another hour at least. The sun was about to rise and we still had one more prisoner to take care of, provided Rodriguez hadn’t already killed him.
It was time for some answers. I wasn’t leaving until I got every single one of them.