Page 11 of My Ruthless Mountain Man

“Find your radio while you’re at it.”

I follow Bishop out and wave as he leaves, then turn to grab my radio from the truck. Kendall is standing in the doorway.

That’s when Bishop’s description clicks.

Some men in the woods with no hiking gear.

No. It’s not possible.There’s no way they could have found her so soon. Not unless...

I glance at her car, dread filling my gut. Striding forward, I skim my hand under the wheel wells, then drop down to look underneath.

There’s a goddamn tracker on it.

“Goddamn fucking hell!” I rip it off, but the damage is done.

“What’s wrong?” Kendall calls.

Once again, I missed something important. Something obvious. And once again, it could get someone I cared about killed.

CHAPTER FIVE

KENDALL

“I’m never goingto fucking goddamn learn!” Stone growls as he pushes past me into the house. He drops something on the table, stomps into his room, and slams the door. A minute later, I hear the shower start.

What just happened?

I cross my arms over my waist, feeling confused as hell. Stone’s giving me whiplash. He asked me to marry him, kissed the hell out of me, then told his friend I was way too young for him, and now... I don’t know what’s happening.

On the table is a small, nondescript black box. It must be what Stone found when he searched around my car. I’m not a mechanic, but judging by Stone’s fury, I can guess this isn’t a normal part of a vehicle. Which means it was probably placed there, and only one person comes to mind—Ilya. Did he track my location and follow me? Did I put Stone in danger by coming here?

My stomach flips, and suddenly I feel sick.

That’s when my phone dings with a text. I rush over and find one tiny bar of signal. Enough to receive a single message.

Ryan: Dammit Kendall. Call me.

I stare at the words for a beat, then reach for Stone’s house phone. I can’t risk losing my brother’s call with bad cell service.

He picks up on the second ring.

“What the hell, Sis? You’re at Stone’s? If I hadn’t seen his number on my caller ID, I’d think your messages were fucking with me,” Ryan snaps. It sounds like he’s driving.

Is he for real? He’s mad because I’m with Stone? I clench the phone feeling my heartbeat spike. “Don’t yell at me, Ryan. I’ve been worried about you since you walked out and didn’t come back. I had Ilya Petrova’s man driving past our house every damn minute and you wouldn’t return my calls. What was I supposed to do when your time was up? Wait to see if Ilya was kidding about using me to pay your debt?”

“I told you I’d take care of it.”

“Have you?”

He falls silent.

“Did you pay him, Ryan?”

I hear a thump, like he slammed his fist on something. “No. I tried to find him, to talk to him and get more time. But he wasn’t at his usual places. I couldn’t exactly walk up and ask his people.”

When I don’t respond, he snarls, “Enough about my problems. Let’s talk about why you ran to my ex-best friend the second there’s even a hint of trouble.”

“Because I didn’t have anyone else to go to! I thought he could help us. That maybe since he’d been trying to reach you, he hadn’t completely written you off like everyone else has.”

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