Page 79 of Perilous Healing

My pulse thunders in response.

“Hey, there you guys are.”

Silas pulls away from me like lightning struck him, and we both turn to Elijah, who’s grinning like the idiot he so clearly is.

“Bad timing?” he jokes.

“What is it?” Silas demands.

“We thought you might want to come share your plan with us. As crazy as it might be.” Michael grins.Troublemaker.

“We’ll be right there,” Silas replies, then turns back to me. “We’re not done here.”

“Good,” I reply with a smile. ‘Not done here’ means there’s more to come.

More that could possibly lead to everything I’ve wanted since I first laid eyes upon the SEAL.

“So you’re tellingme that you want to walk right back into the place you were just freed from?” Bradyn questions, his arms crossed. He still looks exactly the same as he did the day he pulled Silas and me out of that jungle what feels like lifetimes ago.

While I don’t know much about him, I do know that he’s the oldest of five brothers and the son of Silas’s uncle. He also started the Hunt Brothers Search and Rescue Team after getting out of the Army, and since then he and his brothers have managed to track down people that were considered impossible to find.

I’m proof enough of that, given that twice now they’ve pulled me out of a nightmare.

“I think it’s the only way we safely get everyone out,” Silas replies.

Bradyn looks unconvinced. “How do you figure that?”

“River isn’t going to kill us,” Silas insists. “He needs us alive for whatever his goal is.”

“We know his goal,” Elijah replies. “He’s working for Herman Bridges.”

That’s a name I never thought I’d hear again. “Yarrow’s father?”

“One and the same,” Elijah replies. “I had to do some digging, but it seems that River is in some deep water with the man.”

“How so?” Silas questions.

“He owes him a quarter million dollars after a drug run River was hired to do got busted and the product confiscated,” the second-youngest Hunt cousin, Dylan, responds.

“That’s rough.” Michael whistles.

“Tell me about it.” Dylan walks over to the laptop on a table in the center of the tent, and a few seconds later a projector kicks on, painting the side of the tent in landscape photographs and maps. “According to our sources, River assured Herman he could get him the money back—with interest—he just needed some extra time.”

“Herman gave him two months,” Elijah adds. “And time is almost up.”

“They’re here to get the diamonds, but they ran into an issue. The ground wasn’t nearly as fertile as River was hoping for, and he’s not even halfway to his goal yet.”

“Until this morning,” Dylan adds. “Our surveillance shows that a huge vein of diamonds was found just two hours ago.”

“Which means they’ll be gone soon,” Caleb says.

“But not before killing every single person in that camp,” Bradyn replies.

Both Silas and I whirl on him. “What do you mean?”

“Our comms also picked up communication from River, ordering the execution of every man, woman, and child in that camp as soon as the quota is met. They’re leaving no witnesses.”

My stomach churns, bile burning my throat as Bradyn speaks the words. I shouldn’t be surprised. River is, after all, a murderer just like my father. But here I am, once again shocked at the level of evil twisting the hearts of some men. “We have to get back in there and stop him,” I insist. “We have to get those people out.”

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