Page 41 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“I suggest you start talking soon,” I growl at him as I draw the blade slowly over his cheek. A smear of blood darkens the metal, his skin staining with the crimson red. He winces, and a drop falls down into his mouth. His eyes widen as he seems to realize what’s happening to him, but I don’t let up, not for a second. I keep the blade trailing down his face, reaching the corner of his lip, where I tuck the tip into the crease of his mouth.

“Because you can use this mouth for something useful,” I continue. “Or I can carve a new one for you. Your choice.”

The man stares up at me, his eyes painted with terror. Behind me, I can hear Callum and Chuck breathing hard. Though neither of them would say it, they hate seeing me like this, so lost to the darkest part of myself. But if this is what it takes, if this is what I have to do to keep her safe—then I don’t have to think twice. It’s what needs to be done.

I apply a little more pressure to the serrated edge of the knife, letting it snag on the inside of his lip. And finally, it seems to get through to him. He twists his head away from me, spitting out more blood.

“I’ll talk, I’ll fucking talk,” he snarls, sounding almost as angry at himself as he does at us. I shoot a look to Chuck and Callum. They both seem relieved, though I’m sure neither would admit that they were happy to see me like this.

“What the fuck did James send you here for?” I demand, my voice catching at the back of my throat as I wipe off the blood from the blade and stuff it back into the holster. I can still smellthe blood in the air, the weight of it pulling me back to the night it happened. At the corners of my vision, I can almost see the dark shadows around me again, the bodies splayed everywhere I looked.

But I know it’s not real. It can’t be. The only thing that’s real is keeping Charli alive—and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of that.

“For the girl,” the man fires back. “He paid us a few thousand each to follow every track she might have taken after she ran from the wedding. I was the one who saw you guys moving the car, and we set up shop here after that.”

“Set up shop? What does that mean?” I press, my hand resting on the hilt of the knife again, making sure he knows damn well what I’m willing to do if he doesn’t give me what I want.

“He’s got a half dozen men stationed in the town over the hill, Killinsbury,” he replies, jerking his head outside. “He’s been paying them to go on recon up here every other day or so, and the surrounding areas. He’s got other guys stationed in other towns, ready to catch her if she tries to run for it, but his focus is up here.”

He looks between us. “And I guess he was right about that.”

None of us say a word. We’re not giving him anything to go on, not a chance in hell. As tempting as it might be to act like we have this in the bag now he’s talking, all it would take would be one well-timed attack from James’s men, and they’d have him right back where they wanted him, able to share any information he might have gleaned from us.

“You found the traps,” he continues. “And you must have got rid of them, because we found them dumped in the middle of the forest, miles away…”

I smirk. My idea. Something to waste their time and grow their frustration. I knew there was nothing more likely to get these guys looking for a way to finish this than if they felt like they were being sent on a wild goose chase, and at least some of them were, by the sounds of it.

“But he kept us out here. Paid off the local cops not to ask any questions about where we came from or what we were doing. None of them have given us any shit. I heard his father’s rich…”

He trails off, looking to us again. He really doesn’t know what the hell he’s gotten himself into. I would almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t working with that psycho James to pay his bills. For a moment, I find myself wondering if he was once like us—back from service, just struggling to get by. I know how hard that can be…

But even at my worst, I never would have agreed to work with someone like James. Not then, not now, not ever. Being out on the street is better than that. And this guy is about to learn that, once and for all.

“What does he want with her?” Chuck demands, striding forward to pick up on the line of questioning. “Why is he so intent on getting her back?”

“She left him at the altar,” he replies, his voice hollow. “That’s what he told me, anyway. Any man would want?—”

“Would want what?” Chuck presses, leaning forward, his eyes narrowing. The man pauses for a moment, and takes a breath before he replies.

“Would want revenge.”

A coldness rushes over me. Revenge? All this time, I guess I’ve just believed that this James dude wanted her back because he intended to force her to go through with the wedding, but no—it’s not that. It was never that. He’s got something else in mind entirely.

And if this is the extent he’s willing to go to in order to get revenge, I don’t even want to think what might be waiting for her on the other side of it.

“What kind of revenge does he want?” Callum asks, his voice low. He likely already knows the answer to this question, but he needs to hear it out loud. He needs to know that he’s not paranoid for his mind going where it’s gone. We all turn to the man, a heavy silence hanging in the air as we wait for him to respond.

He flicks his tongue over his lip, where the blood has reached his mouth. Despite the scar on his face and the bruising on his jaw, for a moment it looks as though he’s the one calling the shots here.

“He wants to kill her.”

20

CHARLI

As soon asI wake up and glance around, I know something is off. I can feel it in the air—a lack of something, an absence.

Of course, Callum isn’t in bed with me. But he’s usually up before me, so I don’t think much of that. No, it’s the quiet in the rest of the house that bothers me, none of the usual chatter or commotion that fills the air when the guys are getting ready for the day.

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