Page 93 of Snowed In with her Mountain Men
“Oh, thank God!”
The man was bruised and bleeding, his hair flopping into his face as they dumped him unceremoniously in the center of the foyer. He was wet and dirty; zip-tied, hand and foot. His breathing was slow and shallow, but at least he was still breathing.
“Holy shit,” huffed Oakley. “What the hellhappened?”
I followed his gaze with a gasp of my own. Ryder’s upper lip was twice its normal size, and his left eye was swollen completely shut. Jaxon’s face was lacerated across the nose, and covered in blood. He was also limping.
“What do you think happened?” he growled.
“I think you got your asses kicked,” Oakley said smartly.
The man on the floor suddenly laughed. It was a deep, wheezing laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
Ryder reared his leg back and kicked him.
“Stop!” I said, for no particular reason. “Don’t do that…”
“And why the hell not?” spat Jaxon.
“Because, well… I dunno. Because he’s tied up. He’s helpless.”
“Helpless?” the man jeered. “Cut my ties. Let me show you how—”
Ryder grabbed the man violently, screwing his fists into his shoulders. I leapt forward to stop whatever happened next, but all he did was yank their captive into a sitting position.
“Everyone, meet Bryce Tyler,” he grunted. “Brother to Colton.”
Oakley was already off the couch, and hobbling closer. His face was painted in disbelief.
“Holy fucking shit,” he breathed. “You look just like—”
“Yeah, yeah,” the man on the floor snarled. “I look like my brother. Get over it already.” He turned his head and spat. “Actually, he looks likeme.I was first, you know.”
It was uncanny, really. I kept glancing back and forth between our new prisoner and the photo with Sarge, which now hung at a slight, but annoying, angle. They were the same man, in almost every aspect. Physically, anyway.
“Sarge never told us he had a brother,” Jaxon said flatly.
The prisoner only smirked. “He never told me he had three snot-nosed, wanna-be sons, either,” he said icily. “And yet here you are.”
Ryder looked ready to kick him again. A hard look from Jaxon stayed him.
“What the hell do you want?” asked Oakley. “Why do you keep coming here?”
“Same reason as you,” the man spat again.
“Enlighten us.”
“Fine,” he sighed wearily. “You need to hear it? The diamonds.”
For once, no one looked at anyone else. The boys’ gazes remained fixed, their mouths tight-lipped and silent.
“Are you really going to play stupid now?” the man asking, mockingly. “After all the holes I’ve watched you dig? After all the searching, the sifting—”
“Assuming there are diamonds,” Jaxon interjected coldly, “how would you know about them?”
“Simple. My brother told me.”
Wincing in pain, Jaxon shifted his weight off his bad leg. “No he didn’t.”
