Page 35 of Bounty

I wake up the others and catch them up, showing them everything on Jude’s laptop.

“If the phone is still active, we can locate it,” Cain runs to his room, where his computer rig is set up.

“If we find them, we should give them the flash drive,” Wisteria deadpans.

“What?” Jude and I reply, in varying levels of confusion.

“We doctor the information on the drive so they don’t have anything concrete, and give them false shipment details, so they use the pattern to ambush us. Then we take them out.”

“Offense as a defense. I like it,” I comment.

“That may not solve the issue long term,” Jude muses, “But it’s a good start.”

Cain comes back, armed and ready to roll. “It’s coming from the far side of the farm, near the corn fields. Get ready, we can catch them off guard this late at night.”

I help Wisteria put a holster and vest on and give her a quick lesson on gun safety. “Please promise me you won’t shoot unless necessary. I don’t want that on your conscience, okay?”

“I won’t shoot unless I have to,” she promises.

We follow Cain out the back door, through the farm on foot. As soon as we get close, we take cover behind a tractor.

“Mason Judd’s home,” Jude seethes. “How much do you want to bet that Mandy and her father are the moles?”

“She was such a bitch to me when we were kids. And she practically stalked you, Jude,” Wisteria laments.

“You don’t even know the half of it.” Jude leaves it at that.

Cain breaks the door down with a swift kick. Jude grabs Mason, who’s sleeping on the couch in the living room, and ties him to a kitchen chair with zip ties from his pocket. Mandy and her mother run down in their pajamas when they hear Mason shouting.

“Don’t fuck around and waste my time,” Jude growls, shoving the butt of a hun under Mason’s chin. “How do you contact The Skulls?”

The wife cries while his daughter’s face goes white. She doesn’t seem nearly as upset as her mother, or surprised. She looks plain guilty, caught red-handed.

Mason’s face turns red, and he stutters his denial. “I-I-I would never do that to you, Father Jude.”

“I will end you, your wife, and your pathetic excuse for a daughter and feel zero remorse, Judd. Don’t make me.” Jude cocks the trigger with a cool, unbothered expression on his face. He truly doesn’t care if he ends their lives today. Mason pisses himself in fear.

“Some guy named Greg!” Mandy screams. “After Norma left he paid Dad and I to give him information.”

“Did you let them onto the compound?” Cain’s voice is eerily calm, like some fucking traitor isn’t about to get his head blown off. He may have golden retriever energy, but Cain can turn into a rabid dog when you fuck around with the people he cares about.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Mandy cries. She throws her hands in the air as she screams, “You letherback here, and I had to do something before she cast a spell on you again!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jude snaps.

“You were obviously obsessed with her when we were kids. You never noticed me, no matter how hard I tried to get your attention, because you were paying attention to Wisteria Jean! Always watching her, lurking around her, guarding her. It’s disgusting—she’s yourstepsister. I did you a favor when I told Father Mannix I saw Wisteria’s whore mother meeting some stranger on the far end of the compound. It was the only way we could end up together!”

“You ratted out my mom?” Wisteria guffaws, laughing hysterically as she raises her gun.

“Little flower…” I call her, trying to get her attention.

“I thought he would excommunicate her for cheating on him, and she’d take you with her. I didn’t know she’d have a heart attack and die from the stress of it all. It didn’t make much of a difference anyway—you stayed behind,” Mandy snarked.

Wisteria cocks the trigger, aiming right for Mandy’s face.

“Wisteria, please don’t take her life. You’ll have that on your conscience for the rest of your life,” I remind her. “Killing someone changes you.”

She ignores me. I can see her anger reaching the breaking point as tears stream down her face. “She was a traitor, and she betrayed her brothers and sisters, but I loved my mom.”

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