Page 3 of Wyoming Cowboy Undercover

“Mc-C-Coy. Ma...” The syllable slipped from Percival’s mouth in his dying breath. His head lolled to the side in Rocco’s arms, his eyes frozen open at the moment his life slipped away.

No!Rocco tightened his arms around Percy as if by doing so he could change his fate. “God, no.”

He thought of Percy’s wife—his widow—and the reason for his senseless murder.

McCoy. Marshall McCoy.

Guilt seized his heart and squeezed. Followed by a wave of white-hot rage.

“I’ll find out who did this to you,” he vowed. He’d track down those men in the truck one way or another. “And I’ll make them pay.”

Rocco knew precisely where to start.

With Mercy McCoy.

Chapter Two

Mercy McCoy padded through the entryway of polished steel and ten-foot-high windows that spanned the walls, beneath a gleaming chandelier and across a veined marble floor. At the door, she pulled on her canvas shoes and stepped outside. She descended the steps of Light House. It was her home, with private family quarters upstairs, but it also operated as the main building for the entire commune. On the first floor, meals were prepped and served where they ate together in the dining hall. This was the place where they gathered in celebration as well as mourning.

She slipped into the back seat of the SUV. She abhorred being chauffeured around and would’ve preferred to sit up front, but her father had forbidden it.

As I am your father, I cannot also be your friend. Not if I’m to do right by you. We are both leaders of the Light. You must know your place as everyone in the flock must know theirs.

She gritted her teeth against the rule.

Alex, the head of security, pulled off from the circular drive, taking the path downhill. “This is your last time going into town for personal reasons.”

Mercy swallowed around the cold lump in her throat. “What? I don’t understand. Why?”

“Empyrean’s orders,” he said, referring to her father, the great leader of the Shining Light.

“But he didn’t say anything to me.” She had seen him a few minutes ago. He’d simply smiled and waved. Not a word about any changes in protocol.

“I believe he wants to speak with you about it when you return,” Alex said.

Her chest tightened. “Is this a temporary thing? Or permanent?”

Alex met her questioning gaze in the rearview mirror. He didn’t respond, which was an answer in itself.

She scrubbed her palms down her thighs, her fingers suddenly aching. Mercy glanced over her shoulder back at Light House. At the luminous glass-and-metal cage.

Whenever she left to go to town—for herself and not as an acolyte bringing the word of their religious movement to others—she was usually filled with a pure joy that was as bright and warm as the sun. Mainly because it had absolutely nothing to do with her father.

Tonight, nausea roiled through her. The wrought-iron gates of the compound opened. They drove through, passing the guardhouse. Towering trees obscured a brick wall that surrounded the property’s one hundred acres. She faced forward as they headed to town.

For six months, she’d had it good, able to leave the compound twice a week. At first, it was for a hot yoga class. Then she’d passed the Underground Self-Defense school. She’d watched Charlie Sharp teaching a class to other women. Showing them how to be strong, capable. Fearless.

That was what she wanted to be.

Inside the compound, she was sheltered. Lived in a bubble of strict rules. The price of being afforded a constant sense of safety and peace. But always under the umbrella of being Empyrean’s daughter.

Out here, in the world, she often felt like a newborn foal running for the first time. Unsteady. Unsure. Uneasy.

But when she was at USD, throwing punches and kicks, she was on fire. She wasfree. To discover herself and all the possibilities that existed beyond the walls of the compound. To see what she might be without the Shining Light.

Now she was forced to do the one thing in the world that she didnotwant to do.

Give it up.

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