Chapter Seventeen
Hawk climbed out of the pickup and stood in the yard of the Black Heart Ranch, studying the lodge and wondering what Sinead had been doing all day while he was chasing down leads on her attackers two states over.
An image of her face lifted in his mind, her eyes coming into focus first. Beautiful eyes. They shifted with so many emotions, and Hawk couldn’t wait to learn every last one.
Then her entire face flooded his mind, high cheekbones and a perfect chin. Her hair thick and just right for wrapping around his fist and tilting her head back to kiss her sweet mouth.
His insides clutched with need, and he was pretty sure his stitches could handle some strain if Sinead was up to it.
“Hawk.” Gray’s voice cut through his daydreams.
He gave a start and took off toward the security office. Standing there thinking about how he was going to make Sinead unravel in his arms wasn’t going to set their plan for McCrae in motion.
Carson was already at the table when he and Gray walked into the war room. His laptop burned day and night, and coffee flowed at all hours too. A mug with fat cartoon cows sat at his elbow.
One of the running jokes in the Malone family was that Willow and her brothers were always fighting over the best coffee mugs in the house. It looked like Willow won the latest round.
Hawk dropped into the chair across from Carson and Gray took the other.
“McCrae,” Hawk said without preamble. “Evan McCrae. Great-great-grandson of a prospector who worked that mine with Sinead’s family.”
Carson cocked a brow. “So this is an old beef between families.”
Hawk nodded. “Seems that way. This is blood chasing an old claim.”
Carson swung his gaze from Hawk to Gray. “We’ll run everything we can find on him. He can’t be hard to find.”
“Move fast.” Hawk was already pushing to his feet, too restless for meetings and deep dives into backgrounds. “We go as soon as we’ve got a location confirmed.”
“Copy that,” Gray said. “Go check on Sinead. We’ll handle this.”
Hawk went to their shared room first, and finding it empty, went to the dining hall. A few guys having an afternoon snack were seated there, eating and talking, but Sinead wasn’t with them.
He finally ended up knocking on the door of the main house. He waited on the big front porch, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he waited for someone to answer the door.
Colt’s wife Aspen opened it at last. Her pinched brows flattened when she saw him. “Oh, thank goodness. Are they back?”
His own brow creased. “Gray and I are back, if that’s what you mean.”
She shook her head, dark wavy hair swirling around her shoulders. “Sinead and Shiloh went to the municipal office,” she said. “Picking up plot surveys Sinead requested.”
He’d forgotten about the surveys she mentioned she had requested before coming to Wyoming.
Hawk checked the time, and ice slid down his spine. “How long ago?”
Aspen’s eyes widened with true distress. “They left right after lunch. They should’ve been back by now.”
He didn’t wait for her to finish the thought. He was already running to the security office, shouting for Gray and Carson, adrenaline burning through the last of his fatigue.
Four mercenaries were dead, and if McCrae had any brains at all, he had to know by now that his men had failed.
That someone was closing in on him.
A man that desperate, that cornered, didn’t sit by quietly waiting.
He struck back.
Hawk burst into the office. “We need eyes on Sinead and Shiloh right now!” he barked. “They went to the municipal office, but it was hours ago. Something’s wrong.”
Carson jerked his head for him to follow, and he rushed into the war room again.
Lex was already at her laptop, fingers flying across the keys. “If this is McCrae escalating, he’s not thinking long-term anymore—he’ll go for the highest-value target he can reach with the least trouble.” She threw a look at Hawk.
“Sinead.” Fire and pain blazed in his voice.
“Sinead,” Lex agreed grimly.
Gray grabbed his phone. “Where is Oaks right now?”
“Just left for a job in Seattle. He should be on his way to the airstrip now.” Carson traded a long look with his brother.
“Fuck! He’s not going to like this news.”
“Get him on the phone. Tell him to get to the municipal office. I’ll dispatch another bodyguard to take his place.” With that matter addressed, Carson turned his attention back to Hawk.
“If Shiloh took her vehicle, we can track her GPS.”
Hawk hovered over Carson, gaze fixed to the screen of his laptop as his boss flipped through screens to locate his sister-in-law.
As soon as the pin popped onto the screen, Hawk leaned closer and Carson hunched over the keys.
Her vehicle’s GPS coordinates blinked right there, in downtown Willowbrook, at the municipal office.
“Pull the security footage,” Hawk ordered.
It took agonizing minutes to get access and when the feed finally loaded, frustration spiked hot through his chest.
“Fuck!” He tore off his cowboy hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “There’s a blind spot.”
The camera angle cut off exactly at the section of the parking lot where her vehicle sat—where they needed to see.
Carson played the footage back for several minutes.
“There!” Hawk jabbed a finger at the screen. Barely caught at the edge of the frame, another car pulled away fast.
Lex was on her feet, watching too. She pointed. “Back it up. Ten seconds. Zoom in.”
Carson did, his knee bouncing beneath the table. Two women’s lives were on the line, and the room was tense with the knowledge.
When he expanded the view, Lex pointed again. “There. Back seat.”
Hawk pressed his face so close his nose almost touched the screen. It could only be a person, slumped over. Or held down. Impossible to tell which from the camera view.
“We have to get to the municipal office—now.” Hawk was already moving to the weapons locker and loading himself for battle.
Carson and Gray did the same, and then they drove hard for the municipal office. Hawk’s knuckles were white on the wheel the entire way. Every damn mile felt longer than the last.
When they screeched into the lot, it was empty except for two cars parked closest to the entrance. And Shiloh’s SUV at the back of the lot.
The hackles on his neck raised, and his heart lurched. The place was empty and quiet in a way that felt wrong.
“There’s Shiloh!” Gray burst out.
They rushed out of the truck and took off, racing for the bench outside the office. Shiloh sat there alone.
Hawk’s lungs stopped working.
Gray dropped to his knees in front of their sister-in-law. She was holding a hand to her head. As she saw them, relief crossed her face.
She lowered her hand, revealing a thick lump.
Gray took her hand. “Shiloh. What happened?”
Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, and it took her a second to fix on him. No wonder she didn’t even think to go inside and ask for help. “I don’t know. I feel so confused. But…they took Sinead.”
The words struck like a physical blow.
“Who? How many? Which direction—”
Carson put a hand on his shoulder, and he saw that Shiloh’s expression was pinched with confusion and pain in equal measure. If he had to judge, she had suffered a concussion and was struggling to catch up with what he was asking.
She looked up at Carson and winced. “Two men. Maybe three. I can’t think. My head hurts. It happened so fast, I—” Her voice cracked.
Another peel of tires shrieked across the parking lot, and one of the Black Heart trucks burned into the parking lot.
Oaks slammed it in park and hit the ground running. As soon as Shiloh saw her husband, her face crumpled in relief.
He reached her in two strides and pulled her into his arms.
Hawk didn’t wait to hear the rest. He turned, scanning the parking lot with the same focus he’d used on the mountain. Searching for anything—a dropped item, a tire track, anything.
He rushed to the back corner of the lot where the Shiloh’s SUV still sat. A quick circle of the ground around it, and his heart stopped in his chest.
A low growl broke from him, and he crouched to scoop up Sinead’s phone, the designer case cracked in half, the screen shattered into a spiderweb of glass, ground into the asphalt.
She had nothing on her. No GPS. No signal.
No way to track her.
Rage and fear tangled in his chest until he couldn’t separate one from the other.
His mind felt numb and his legs wooden as he crossed the lot to his team again. Oaks had Shiloh loaded into the truck to take her to the clinic, murmuring reassurances that Hawk only half heard over the blood pounding in his ears.
The rest of the team arrived moments later, converging in the parking lot. Gray split them into two groups.
He looked at Hawk. “Lex followed McCrae’s financials to an Airbnb.”
“Where?” he grated out, throat swollen with the need to bellow and rage.
“Not far. You’re with me.”
Crew reached out and squeezed Hawk’s shoulder. “Let’s hope he’s sitting there waiting.”
“You guys take the Airbnb. I’m taking the mine.
” He spoke to the other group before the plan even fully formed in his head.
“Crew, Gray and I are the only ones who know the way in from here, and if he’s desperate enough to grab her in broad daylight, my gut says he’s taking her back to where this whole thing started. Finish what his family never finished.”
Crew gave a hard nod. “I got you.”
Carson jerked his head toward Hawk. “You guys get to the mine.” He fired off more instructions for the other two teams, but Hawk stopped listening.
They loaded into the chopper within minutes, blades cutting hard through fading daylight. The mountains rose, black and silent ahead of them. Hawk sat rigid in his seat, jaw locked, every mile eating at what little patience he had left.
Every cell in his body screamed out for Sinead. They hadn’t known each other very long, but dammit, he’d vowed to protect her and he would see it through.
But more than that, he was feeling things he never expected to feel for anyone.
He was falling for her.
No. Had fallen.
“Fuck,” he ground out.
Gray looked at him hard, but he didn’t say anything.