Page 13 of Rusty's Command

“Shhh,” he cut her off.

He gripped Soda’s lead with one hand and pulled his Glock with the other. “Stay here,” he whispered in her ear. He climbed up the natural ramp, then, pressing his back to the cold stone at the tube’s exit, he scanned outside. Nothing. No tattooed killers. No tarp-wrapped body. No freshly dug hole.

He stepped out cautiously, and his boots crunched on a patch of dirt that had somehow survived the lava flow. Soda sniffed the ground, nose to the earth, working in widening circles. The dog’s deliberate sweep heightened his growing unease.

His gut knotted as Soda came up empty. No signs. No tracks. No evidence to back up a single word of Sienna’s story.

It’s all bullshit.

“Clear.” The word was bitter on his tongue.

What the hell is she playing at?

She emerged from the tube, cradling Pickle, and he watched the performance unfold. Her jaw slacked, her eyes widening as she scanned the clearing. She pressed the terrier tighter against her chest like a living shield.

“But . . . this is it. Right here.” Her voice cracked perfectly. “I saw them digging.”

With her free hand, she gestured helplessly at the ground that hadn’t seen a shovel in years.

She was good. Damn good. That precise blend of confusion and desperation, the shocked eyes, the protective curl around the dog, the voice that trembled just enough to trigger every protective instinct in him. Hannah had been equally skilled with her wounded looks and quivering lips that drew him in again and again.

He’d believed every excuse—until the night he tracked her so-called overtime to her fucking her boss at work.

Sienna blinked rapidly, eyes going glassy. “I swear to God, they were right here.”

“Well, they must be magicians ‘cause there’s nothing here now.”

Her fingers twisted in Pickle’s fur as tears pearled on her lashes. “I’m telling the truth.”

The similarity hit him like a punch to the gut. Same damsel in distress playbook.

“Please,” she whispered, clutching Pickle. “You have to believe me. This was the spot.”

Her performance was flawless, just like Hannah’s had been.

Their tears were a weapon in their arsenal.

He turned away.I am not falling for that bullshit again.

CHAPTER 4

Sienna

With Pickle tucked firmlyunder her arm, Sienna stared at the patch of earth where the men had been digging. Her free hand clenched into a fist so tight that her fingernails bit half-moons into her palm. The ground before her was unnervingly smooth and so meticulously flattened that not a single mark remained to validate what she’d seen.

Someone had erased every trace like a hacker scrubbing their digital fingerprints.

Turning in a slow circle, she scanned for footprints, signs of the digging, or the body wrapped in the tarp.

I’m in the right spot. I know it.

Sienna swept the area with the same methodical precision she used when securing network perimeters. The spindly tufts of weeds were still there. The distinctive heart-shaped rock that sat exactly where she remembered, nestled at the base of a gnarled tree. The deep crack in the lava flow that ran jagged and unbroken.

This is exactly where I saw them.

When she met Rusty’s gaze, his fierce intensity made her step back. He wasn’t just angry. Something darker and more complicated shrouded him.

“They were right here,” she said, hating how her voice wavered.Facts. Give him facts.“Two men with two shovels. A shape wrapped in a light blue tarp. One of them was standing in the grave.”

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