She’d already caused him so much pain. She couldn’t put him in prison on top of it. She had to make sure there was nothing left behind that would link her to him.
As she walked out the back door, she knew his home was clean of all traces. It was as if she’d never existed.
Suddenly, someone stepped out of the shadows.
She reached for her gun. Then realized who it was.
“Damn it, Kenny! Are you trying to get yourself shot?” she snapped.
Kenny grinned, but didn’t look all that worried. “I’m just checking your reflexes.”
Pudge ran up, and she dropped to her knees to hug him and give him some love.
“Mrs. Bosley asked me to take him for a walk,” Kenny explained. “Naturally, he took off for here, no matter what I said.”
“He wanted to come home.” She understood. That was the real reason she’d been here, too. Because she was scared and lonely, and just wanted to be home. Unfortunately, it hadn’t helped. The house was cold and empty. Just a shell of what had made it feel like a home.
Colton was missing.
“Do you know when Mr. Willis will be back?” Kenny asked.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
Kenny’s gaze focused on the bag in her hand. “You’re leaving before he gets back?”
“There’s something I have to take care of,” she explained, but the boy didn’t seem convinced.
“You’re running away.” Disappointment clouded the boy’s solemn face.
There had been many jokes regarding Kenny’s intelligence, but Angel saw how bright he was. This kid had instincts that would make him a great detective someday. He could read people, even when they were doing their best to hide the truth…even from themselves.
“He’ll be back soon.” She deflected his comment with her own bit of truth.
She’d gotten word yesterday that Colton was awake and out of critical condition. The relief of Thorne’s announcement had brought on another wave of tears, and she’d hurried the conversation along so she could get off the phone and let them fall.
“I wanted to thank both of you for taking me shooting,” Kenny said, and grinned. “I made it into the academy.”
“I’m proud of you. You’re going to do great,” she told him. “Really. I’m sure of it.”
“I hope you’re right.” He kicked the dirt with his foot, then looked up at her. “I think you should stay until Mr. Willis gets home. You didn’t see how sad he was when you were away the last time. If you leave, no amount of ice cream is going to fix it. Not that I’m not willing to try.”
She hugged Kenny and gave a watery smile into his shoulder. “He’s pretty tough. He’s going to be okay. I promise.” She pulled away, patted Kenny on the arm, then crouched down to deal with canine guilt. “Take good care of him for me, okay?” she said to the dog, who whined his reply. “Good boy.”
With a pat on the head, and a smile for Kenny, she stood to go face her biggest fear.
Putting the violent past behind her…in the only way she knew how.
Chapter One Hundred Five
A guy by the name of Garrett showed up at the hospital to drive Colton back to Oregon. Angel had told him a little about the man. How he’d left the team to marry Thorne’s daughter.
“You worked for Thorne?” Colton asked when he had caught his breath from the exertion of getting in the vehicle and buckling up.
“I used to. Now I’m his son-in-law.”
No doubt there was a good story there, but before Colton got the chance to ask for details, Garrett turned to him.
“How deep are you in with Angel?” Garrett asked, his eyes narrowed on Colton’s face.
Colton let out a sigh. This must be the “What are your intentions?” conversation. No problem. He was prepared. She’d said often enough her team was like her family, so it wasn’t surprising they acted the part.
“All the way,” Colton said. Not only was he in love with Angel, but after their moment on the sofa with no condom, she could be pregnant. Would she tell him if she was? Would he get the opportunity to be a father to his kid?
Garrett searched his eyes, apparently believed him, and gave a short nod. “Good. She needs someone who’s willing to go all the way.”
Colton nodded. “I’m willing.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Not that it will matter. Even if she survives her next stupid stunt, she still won’t give me a chance. She’ll just come up with more reasons why we shouldn’t be together.”
For the last few days as he lay in the hospital, he’d tried his best to push her out of his thoughts. He’d figured he would be better off if he could exorcise her quickly from his mind and body. And he’d already been on pain meds. But they hadn’t helped. Nothing had.
He couldn’t just give up on her. Not yet.
Love made people do really foolish things. Like set themselves up for rejection again.
Or get themselves killed.
“Take it from me,” Garrett said. “If someone loves you enough, they won’t be able to stay away. I couldn’t. When I finally figured out that I couldn’t go back to the way things were without Sam, I came back to her.”
“The whole ‘let something go, and if it’s meant to be, it will come back to you’ thing?” He might have rolled his eyes if it didn’t hurt so much.
“Something like that.” Garrett let out a breath. “Angel’s had it rough.”
A huge understatement. Colton laughed, causing a wince of pain. He wasn’t quite up for laughing yet.
“If she doesn’t get herself killed, and if she decides she wants me, I’ll be ready.”
That statement had way too many ifs to be hopeful.
“She won’t get herself killed. We’ll make sure of it. We all plan to work the mission from our end,” Garrett said with a wink before he left Colton sitting on his living room sofa with a wave.
Only a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Pudge nearly knocked him over with jumps and big doggy licks as soon as he hobbled to the door and opened it.
“Oh my!” Deb said worriedly when she caught sight of Colton. “That motorcycle accident was far worse than they said. You look absolutely terrible.”
There was nothing like having someone confirm you looked as bad as you felt.
“I’m going to be fine. Just a little sore,” he assured her.
“I brought you a nice piece of cake,” she said as she bustled past him to the kitchen.
Things were looking up.
Except, his neighbor was frowning back at him. “I’m sorry to say your lady friend left. I saw her pack up her things, and Kenny spoke to her as she was leaving.”
Colton kept his face blank. Barely. “Oh. Uh—”
She put the cake on the table, and went back to the door. “It’s okay, dear. You don’t want a woman who will just up and leave when you need her. You want someone who stays loyal in sickness and in health.”
“You’re right, ma’am.”
If he thought for a moment Angel had left him because she didn’t want to help him through his injury, it might have been easier to let her go.
But he knew the reason she’d left.
Guilt.
She believed it was her fault he’d been hurt. It was easy to replay something after the fact and see where you’d fucked up. In the heat of the moment, however, it came down to instincts, training, and shit luck.
Luck hadn’t been on his side when Viktor Kulakov’s lackey shot him. And it hadn’t been with him in the warehouse when his partner froze up at the sight of her ex-lover-thought-dead. He didn’t blame her. Despite their understanding of how the system worked, it was still daunting when someone you thought was dead greeted you while pulling a gun.
Her main reason for not wanting Colton to go with her was that he might get hurt while helping her. And that was exactly what had happened.
If he’d had a chance to talk to her before she left, he might have been able to convince her sh
e wasn’t to blame…but he had his doubts.
No, Angel hadn’t left him because she didn’t want to be bothered with his recovery. She’d left because she couldn’t handle seeing the pain she was convinced she’d caused him.
If only she realized how much worse the pain was, caused by her absence.
Deb smiled at him. “My daughter is divorced, and a nurse. I should invite you both over for dinner.”
Colton laughed and shook his head. “You’re going to have to give me some time, okay?”
“Sure, sure. You let me know when you’re ready to move on.”
The woman patted his bad shoulder and left.
When he closed the door, he let out a wince at the pain. Both the external kind as well as the internal variety.
He scratched his dog’s ears and sighed. “The problem is, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to move on.”
Chapter One Hundred Six
Angel tossed her Kevlar vest in the back seat, not bothering to wear it. What was the point when the person she was trying to bring in was using armor-piercing bullets? The vest hadn’t helped Colton.
Just thinking his name made her clamp her jaw in frustration and regret.
She needed to mentally prepare for what came next. She would be facing down a heartless killer. She knew from past experience that Lucas didn’t act like a normal person. He didn’t have feelings like remorse of curiosity. He fed on death and blood.
She slid a knife into the sheath inside her boot and got out of the car. She was a walking arsenal, but no way was it overkill. Not when going up against someone like Lucas Stone.
It had taken her over a month to track him down. The little weasel had been on the move, but now it seemed he was settling down.
She’d managed to infiltrate his computer network and use it to track him. Knowing who she was dealing with had given her the insight she’d needed to find him.
The feds now had the prototype, but she’d still seen a hefty sum deposited in Stone’s bank account. Was it upfront money for a hit? If so, he’d probably be moving on when the job was done. It was time to finish this.
She’d hidden her vehicle among the trees and shrubs at the end of the lane. With shaky hands, she closed the trunk and turned toward her destiny.
This is stupid. So stupid, Angel told herself as she stared up the farm lane in rural Oklahoma, working up the courage to make her next move. She’d checked satellite maps and done surveillance, and come up with a foolproof plan—if there was such a thing as a foolproof plan when hunting a crazy person.
All that was left to do was to walk up there and implement it. Come what may, it would all be over in the next hour.
Striding down the lane in the dry heat, she pulled her gun from its holster. Each step she took sent up a small cloud of dust. There were no trees closer to the house. She would be approaching the house and barn on foot, in a fairly open space. She would have to hope Lucas wasn’t looking through the front windows as she moved in.
It was never good to be pinning the success of a plan on hope. Hope was as useless as luck.
Fear pumped through her body, making her light and quick. She allowed herself a moment in between cover to catch her breath and work out the next leg of the approach.
If felt as though it took days to reach the front of the house. She peered in the first window.
An empty living room.
The next was a bedroom. Also empty.
As she moved swiftly and quietly around the house, she heard an engine roar to life in the barn. The sound was as good as yelling his name and having him answer.
She hid behind a large tree in the backyard and counted to three before making her move—which was to run like hell to the barn. Once there, she maneuvered around it, looking for alternate exits. The last thing she wanted was for Lucas to get away again.
This needed to end, here and now.
Using the edge of her shirt, she cleaned a small area at the corner of a window in the back. Even after cleaning the window a second time, she wasn’t sure what was happening inside.
It was fairly dark. The only light was coming through the open doors behind Lucas, whose back was to her. The engine she’d heard came from a chainsaw, and he was using it to cut up something.
Her heart jackhammered. No. He was cutting up someone.
He was covered and dripping with blood while standing over the dead body. She nearly choked on a surge of nausea. Seeing him like that brought back a flood of memories from the night her brother had murdered her parents.
She swallowed down the disgust and fear, and forced herself to focus on the man in the barn without seeing her brother.
Nicholas’s hair had been dark, and Lucas was blond, but in that moment they looked like the same person. Maybe it was the emptiness in their eyes, or the tension emanating from them, she wasn’t sure. She only knew they were both the same kind of monsters. And at one time, in different ways, she’d loved them both.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but she ignored it. Instead, she moved in to put an end to this nightmare.
She held up her gun, ready to shoot him.
While she couldn’t help the person scattered in pieces on the floor, she could help the next person, and the next after that. Because one thing was for sure, Lucas Stone was not able to stop killing.
Her entrance created a shadow in the light coming in through the door behind her. Lucas jumped, dropping the chainsaw, which abruptly stopped running. The silence in the barn surprised her as much as the screwdriver he threw at her before taking off at a run.
With no other thought than to stop him, she chased him to the other end of the barn, which was lined with hay bales. Dust choked her throat and brought tears to her eyes, but she was focused and rushed on, her gun out, blood pumping.
Her only warning was a slight shuffle on the floor. Then he lunged, grabbed her gun hand, and pressed a blade to her throat.
She knew there wouldn’t be a lot of talking. Lucas wasn’t driven by the dramatics of it. He needed the blood. The death.
It would be over quickly.
Chapter One Hundred Seven
To Angel’s surprise, Lucas didn’t kill her immediately. Instead, he said disgustedly, “I was eventually going to get to you. You just can’t wait for anything.”
“Who was she?” Angel knew the victim in the barn was female.
“No one you knew.”
He used his weight to drag Angel back to the body. The head was gone, so she couldn’t be sure he was telling the truth.
“Did you bring your friend or did I kill him?” he asked conversationally. “It felt like a good shot, but in the heat of the moment you never know.”
“He’s fine. Thank you for asking.”
The knife pressed more firmly into her skin, and she held back a squeak of pain as it pierced her flesh. He liked hearing the pain. She wouldn’t give him that.
“Always a comedian.” He squeezed her arm tighter, cutting off the circulation.
“You’re getting dramatic in your old age,” she taunted. “I always thought you were less talk and more action.”
“Only because I was forced to hurry. Back in righteous days, I had to rush through the best parts before my partner found me. You remember.” He pulled the knife even closer to her throat. “But now I have all this space to work, and because I know you never call for backup, I have unlimited time.”
“Lucky for me”—she made her move, pushing the knife away just as a shot rang out through the barn. Lucas fell to the ground with a stirring of dust—“I learned from that mistake,” she finished.
Thorne stepped out around a stack of bales, as Dane holstered his gun and limped closer.
“Thanks, guys,” she said breathlessly.
Thorne moved in to hug her, but then frowned at the blood on her clothes and patted her shoulder instead. Fair enough.
“Thanks for not being stupid this time,” Dane said. “Check his vitals. I want to make sure
he’s not going to do a surprise resurrection scene. I really hate those.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” she assured. It was pretty obvious Lucas was dead. But she did check for a pulse in what was left of his neck. “Good shot.”
“Wasn’t me,” Dane said with a shrug, and glanced at Thorne.
Thorne smiled, shook his head, and turned toward the sound of another set of footsteps.
“Great job, Deputy Marshal Williamson,” Thorne said as Colton stepped into the room.
Chapter One Hundred Eight
Seeing Angel being held at knifepoint by a madman had scared Colton more than anything he’d ever lived through. Somehow, he’d managed to steady his trembling hands enough to get off the shot to drop the guy.
After taking a brief moment alone to put his head between his knees and make sure he wasn’t going to do something silly like puke or pass out, he strode out from his hiding place to go check on her.
She was walking and talking, but her hands shook, and he wanted nothing more than to go to her and hold her. He wanted to feel her alive and warm in his arms, and never let her go.
It was the letting her go part of that plan that kept him in place as the sound of sirens filled the hot summer air.
He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. Stepping into her life, only to look around and find he was alone again—it was killing him.
When she thanked him for coming, he nodded but didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He worried if he opened his mouth, the only thing that would come out would be begging.
Fortunately, he was relieved of the possibility when the building was swarmed by the local police. As was normal protocol, each of the marshals gave a statement of what had happened, then they were asked to come to the station to tie everything up.
It was a good shoot, and the mutilated body on the floor was pretty solid proof of the man’s guilt.
Colton kept his eye on Angel as he gave his statement, and he was glad to see Dane get in the driver’s side of her car to take her to the station. Her family was taking good care of her. That was as much as he could hope for.
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