Page 54 of Savage Sin

I really wish I didn’t have trust issues.

Once I have my sister clear, he can take an entire army of killers in and clean up the place for all I care. But if I fail…

I unfold it and look around for something to write with. When I’m done, I fold the map and tuck it back inside the duffle, with the pen clipped to the outside as a backup security plan. Eventually, someone will find it and with it, thehacienda.

“Speaking of security.” I shuffle through last night’s debris and quietly open the doors. Thirty seconds and I have the cameras shut down.

This whole time, I can’t seem to get my heart out of my throat. I grab the handle for what I hope is the garage door and ease it open. I pause. Hot air and the smell of oil and pine hit me. “Bingo.” The carport. An SUV sits in bay one while a boat trailer takes up the other.

I hop into the SUV and then pause when realization hits.

Holy shit. Wait.

I climb over the seats and feel under each one as I go until I find what I’m looking for. This thumb drive has cost me a lot. With the stab wound, the worry about my sister, dealing with Rage and everything he’s stirred up, I momentarily forgot about what earned me the bottom of that ship in the first place. I stuff it into my front pocket and head toward the front. I put the key in and turn the key.

Nothing.

No flashes of light, no turn of the motor. Nothing.

If I can get to the road, I can thumb it all the way back to Texas. Not the best laid plans, but it’s better than being out here in the middle of nowhere with no other plan but to wait. Gabrielle is out of time.

I turn over the ignition one more time but I only had a few knocking click sounds and once again nothing.

The driver’s side door yanks open and I turn to see a wide set of blue eyes.

“Out now!” He grabs my hand on the ignition, pulls it away, and I’m slung over a broad set of shoulders. We are out of the garage and running around the house while my brain is trying to piece together the fear in his eyes and the speed of his gate.

No, “hey where the hell do you think you are going or I’m going to tie you up again.”

Just flat-out hauling ass. We are around the back of the house in three long strides. He guns it for the tree line and we almost make it. He slips on wet grass, rights us and then a force so hard slams into my face and his back that I’m thrown from his shoulder and tossed into the grass.

There’s nothing soft about wet grass. Rage pulls me in, tucks his body around mine milliseconds before our clothes get epic grass stains.

But I barely notice. I’m too busy covering my face and getting clobbered by a two-hundred-pound man and getting hammered by debris.

“What is it?”

“Bomb!”

That single word stops my heart cold.

We lay in the soaked grass from last night’s thunderstorm with me trying to put air back into my deflated lungs and failing spectacularly.

Large hands roam from the top of my head to my knees. “Are you okay?” My ears are ringing and I think I’m shaking my head, but he asks again and this time his hands come to either side of my face.

“Answer me!” I’ve seen anger and malicious intent written on people’s faces before. I’ve heard men die. But I have never seen or heard so much panic and fear in another person’s voice. Especially when it’s about me.

I grab at my side in the fresh pain. “Yes, yes. I’m okay.” I answer, but he’s throwing the side of my shirt up and hissing.

“Fucking shit!” He roars. I look down to see my new T-shirt getting stained with blood.

Everything after that happens at a furious speed of destruction.

The bit of air I manage to collect leaves my lungs in a painful rush and Rage comes over the top of me just as dirt, rocks and glass rain down for a second time.

“What…what the hell just happened?” My lungs burn for more air. Over the edge of his shoulder, smoke colors the morning sky. Not good. I try to roll his enormous form off my chest so I can breathe, but he keeps me from moving just as another explosion goes off and this time the pieces of wood falling from the sky are massive.

I look at him wild-eyed and turn back to the cabin in time to see the gun pointed at us from the second-floor balcony.

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