Page 190 of Hold Me Until Morning

I flailed and tore at Tyrek’s hold, my chest bowing as I warred to break free. Screams ripped out of my lungs. “Cody! Where is he? Let me go! Please, let go.”

Two men were on the opposite side of the truck, about eight feet out, kneeling around something I couldn’t see.

But my soul knew.

“Cody.” I whimpered it that time.

A siren bleeped from the fire station that was only a mile down the road, and the whirring sound of it curled through the heavens as it started our direction.

“Cody.”

It was mayhem then.

The fire trucks and ambulance that pulled up, firefighters and paramedics descending on the scene, pushing everyone back while employees scrambled and swarmed to see what the clamor was about.

While I felt my heart shatter out in front of me.

FORTY-THREE

CODY

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD

Cody sat in his truck beneath the shade of the tree.

Waiting.

His guts in a knot of shame and desperation.

How many times had he heard the sayings? Proverbs and inspirations and pretty words inscribed on plaques about the lengths a man would go to for his family? He doubted much those sentiments extended to what he’d succumbed to. The immorality he’d been driven to.

But he had no other choice, and he was close. So close to getting his mother out of the hole she was in, and he was determined to dig her out of it even if he ended up buried.

It turned out Brent was running an illegal gambling ring based at the horse track here in Eddings, a small city a little more than an hour from Wagner Ranch. He’d used his connections at the ranch to give him an in. Using it as a cover.

The guy was dirty. As dirty as they came.

And he was using Cody to put pressure on those who hadn’t made good on their bets.

Cody tried to justify his actions by saying these guys had it coming to them. It wasn’t like they were innocent. It wasn’t like they weren’t out pilfering away their families’ security with their addiction to money. With their greed. With their stupidity.

Cody kept telling himself that over and over as he waited for any sign of movement outside the accountant’s office where he was hidden at the far side of the small back parking lot that accommodated three cars.

There was only one sitting there.

A white BMW that he’d confirmed the idiot drove the night before when he’d followed him to his house, keeping his distance, fucking sick to his stomach at what he was supposed to do.

It didn’t matter that he’d already done it close to fifteen times. He was sure he was never going to get used to it.

The only thing that kept him moving was his mother’s grief that was wound in his spirit. Her tears in his hands. That promise he had made to his father as a little boy playing through his head on repeat.

And he was going to keep that promise.

So he slipped from his truck when he saw the back door swing open and the middle-aged man come waltzing out without a clue. Dressed in slacks and a button-down, confidence oozing off him in waves.

Cody came up behind him just as he was opening the driver’s side door of his car, and he had him by the wrist. He was locking his arm behind his back and pinning him to the frame before the man even noticed he was there.

Shock blistered, a beat of succumbing, before the man flailed and tried to break free as he roared, “What the hell? Do you know who I am?”

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