Page 49 of Lone Star Witness

Slade stopped and looked back at her. The concern was all over his face. Not for himself but for her. He motioned toward the screen.

“That’s why the only way for Plan C to happen is for Nash and Jericho to be with Caroline and you,” Slade insisted. “The van can’t get near the creek since there’s no road to drive there, and I wouldn’t have a visual on you or be able to get to you if there’s an attack.”

The concern was in his voice, too. Heavy and thick. And she went to him to brush her hand over his. What she wanted to do was pull him into her arms and try to reassure him that they’d all make it through this alive.

But a reassurance like that could be a lie.

“You have stitches in your arm,” she pointed out. “And you’re bruised to hell and back. Personally, I think Plan C sucks with you going in alone to face Sonny, and you’re not a hundred percent. Not even close,” she added when he opened his mouth, no doubt to argue that.

“She’s right,” Jericho said. “You should wait in the van with Caroline and Marise, and I’ll go after Sonny.”

Slade huffed. “I should be the one to do this.”

“He’s pulling that age shit again,” Jericho grumbled, rolling his eyes for Nash to see. “Yeah, I’m the youngest,” he added in a snarl. “But I’ve got no injuries that would stop me from ending this shitbag’s scum-sucking life.”

“No injuries here either so I could be the one to go after the shitbag,” Nash piped in, causing Caroline to groan softly.

Caroline clearly didn’t want Nash going after Sonny alone, and Marise understood that. She certainly didn’t want Slade going solo, and Jericho’s fiancée, Rachel, would probably feel the same way.

“Maybe we need a Plan D,” Marise commented.

“I agree,” Slade was quick to say, but he didn’t get a chance to add more because the drone flew over something that caught everyone’s attention.

“What was that?” Caroline asked.

Marise didn’t know, but it was white and had definitely stood out in a small clearing near the creek.

Jericho did something on his phone that had the drone circling back and slowing once it reached the white object. The image froze on the screen, and Slade used his keyboard to zoom in on it.

“It’s a sheet of posterboard covered by some plastic,” Slade murmured.

It was, and it was being held down at the four corners with some rocks. Slade zoomed in on it even closer until Marise could see the writing. It was a handwritten message, and Slade read it aloud.

“They die if you call in the cops or don’t bring Marise and Caroline here with you.”

“They?” Caroline questioned.

Slade pulled back from the close-up of the rain-splattered posterboard, and Jericho panned the drone around until they spotted something else.

Oh, God.

A man and a woman were dangling over the side of the bluff. Side by side, their hands had each been tied in front of them, and they were in a sort of harness made of thick ropes that crisscrossed over their bodies and looped under their butts. The two ropes had then been secured around a tree at the top of the bluff.

Both the man and the woman were gagged with strips of duct tape, but despite the gags and their sopping wet hair plastered on their faces and heads, Marise still knew who they were.

Stephanie and Colonel Rosa.

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Chapter Seventeen

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The storm had a mean streak, throwing buckets of rain at the van while lightning made angry zigzags across the sky. A sky that looked more midnight than daylight thanks to the bruised-colored clouds that were responsible for the downpour.

There was absolutely nothing about this plan that Slade liked—including the pisser of a storm. It put Marise and Caroline right in the heart of danger. And it left his brothers and him vulnerable as well. But yet, here they were, driving straight toward that danger at a creek near Stronghold compound.

Danger that might be wrapped up in a big-assed ruse.

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