by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
And they all were aimed at Remi.
Lawson was the only one who remained seated.
He turned back to his drink.
Remi, wide-eyed, looked at Declan.
He was furious.
“This was a trap. One we set up ourselves,” he said through gritted teeth. “I should have never brought you.”
Remi had opened her mouth to say she was sorry for pushing them to come since it had obviously been a bad plan after all when she was interrupted by a man breaking away from a group in the middle of the room. He was dressed in an expensive suit and smiling.
“We didn’t give you much choice, now did we?” the man said. “After we realized the value of Miss Hudson, we knew that an attack against her would only make you stick that much closer to her side. Even taking her to a bar for a seemingly insignificant meeting.” He stopped a few feet from them. Then he held out his hands and lowered them. Every patron around them put away their guns and sat back down.
Then it was just the three of them standing.
“If you hadn’t brought her, then we would have. And killed every innocent person we had to to do it,” he continued. “This was the best option you could have hoped for.”
“I’ve been looking for you for a while now,” Declan said. “The man with the scar on his hand who seems to pop up when us Nashes are involved.”
Remi looked down at the man’s hand. Sure enough she could see the scar in the shape of an X on it.
He was the leader of the Fixers.
And they were apparently in their den.
The man kept smiling.
“Maybe it’s you all who keep popping up in my business. Did you ever think of that?”
Declan’s hands were fisted. Remi wanted to hold them, but didn’t want to move and start a fight.
“You’re too young to have carried out the abduction,” he said. “What’s your part in all of this now? What do you want with us?”
The man’s smile twisted into a nasty smirk.
“I’m here to give you some choices. Some hard choices. Then we’ll be leaving and you’ll never see me again.”
Declan wasn’t pleased with that answer.
“Let her go and I’ll make all the choices you want.”
The man shook his head. Then he looked at Remi.
“She’s the one who has to make the first choice.”
Declan started to move toward her to, she guessed, shield her from the man, his words and the consequences they’d bring. The man in the suit didn’t have to lift a hand to stop him. Half of the bar raised their guns again. Declan held up his hands and stopped.
He actually growled.
“It’s okay,” she said. Then to the man in the suit, she said, “You clearly like the sound of your own voice so why don’t you go ahead and give me your bad-guy spiel so you can hear it some more.” The man’s eyebrow rose. “Sorry, do you want me to sound more like a damsel? Do you want me to cry?”
“Huds,” Declan warned.
I’m sassing because of pregnancy hormones and straight up fear, she wanted to explain. Instead, she tried to simmer down.
The man actually sniggered at her.
“I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that you have some bite. You did manage to escape my men yesterday.”
“After I shot one,” she added, failing at keeping her sass in check.
The man nodded, conceding.
“You did, and it was such a bold decision given the odds. Which makes this next part interesting for me.” He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “This entire organization was made with the sole purpose of destroying the Nash family. From root to stem, every job taken, every connection made, has been a means to an end...for some of us. Myself? I’d like to think we’re worth more than a revenge plot. But, for now, here I am to get us all to the next stage.” His smile dropped and suddenly he was the image of a consummate professional. “You, Remi Hudson, can do one of two things. You can either come with me willingly to be bait for Declan and the triplets to come save you later, or you can refuse and I’ll kill Declan and you’ll still be bait for the triplets later. The choice is yours.”
Remi went ramrod straight. Declan cussed and started telling her no.
She didn’t listen.
“So I can either die now or die later? Not much of a choice.”
The man shrugged.
“Think of it like this, if you leave voluntarily he won’t die now and might even save you later. It’s probably your best option.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Declan yelled. The man paid him no mind again.
“If I go with you, what’s to stop your happy helpers from killing him the moment we leave?”
“Nothing, but we’d like his help for this next part. He’s the best candidate to convince his siblings to meet us all at Well Water Cabin. Alone.”
A shiver went down Remi’s spine.
“Why do you want to go there?” Declan had to ask.
“Because it’s poetic, I suppose. Because we can. Now, Miss Hudson, make your choice.”
Remi looked at Declan.
Beautiful, soulful green eyes. Smart and cunning and, most of all, kind.
Declan Nash was a good man. He would be an even greater father. But to be that, to have that chance, Remi had to keep herself alive. Just as she had to keep him alive, too. Since she wasn’t in law enforcement, didn’t have a weapon and was standing in a room filled with at least fifteen people who weren’t afraid to use theirs, making her choice was laughably simple.
“I’ll go.”
* * *
EVERY MAN AND woman had their weapons back up.
Some were itching to use them.
Declan knew the feeling, but reality was biting him in the backside. He made a rough estimate that there was no way he could get Remi out before one of the fifteen or so guns went off and bullets rained down on them both. Even if he became a human shield, the odds weren’t in their favor that he could get her out without being hurt. He also figured there was no way he could get her safely out the back door behind the bar which, he assumed, led to a kitchen or office and eventually to an exit.
In fact, any way he sliced it, there was no good option to save Remi.
Rage boiled beneath his skin. Helplessness only made it hotter.
He should have never sought out information on Justin Redman. Going to Well Water to look for the note in the first place had been a mistake. Just as going back with Remi to find it had been.
He should have locked Remi and him up in his room.
Stayed together beneath the sheets.
Definitely not brought her along to Waypoint Bar.
“There’s no way in hell you’re going,” he told her, chancing a slight movement that angled him between her and the man in the suit. She smiled. It made every part of him wish he could protect every part of her.
“I am. And you’re going to let me.” She lowered her voice to an almost-whisper. “Who knows Well Water better than you do?”
It was a question that hung in the air as the distance between them grew. Declan watched helplessly as his future family walked away from him.
Remi stopped at the man’s shoulder. When she spoke, there was fire in her words and she let the entire room hear them.
“I may not have a badge or a gun but if I find out anyone so much as touched him after we left, you will never see me coming. I’ll rip you and your cute little suit to shreds.”
The man in the suit chuckled and nodded. He motioned to a woman at the table nearest him. She made her way over and then led Remi out.
Remi didn’t look back at him.
Which was good.
Declan was doing all he could to keep from running after her and taking out as many guns as he could al
ong the way. And maybe the Fixers around them knew that. Some pulled their guns higher.
When Remi and the woman were out of the bar the man in the suit moved closer. The smile he’d given Remi’s sass was gone. His tone reminded Declan of a tired teacher.
“You will bring Madi, Caleb and Desmond to Well Water Cabin at midnight. You will tell no one else where you are going or why. You will lie if anyone asks where Remi is and you will do it convincingly.”
“And if it’s just me who shows up?”
The man in the suit shook his head.
“That’s not part of the plan.”
“And that’s not a good answer.”
He shrugged.
“I’m not here to give you what you want, Declan. I’m here to tell you the only chance you have at saving one family is to sacrifice the other. Like Remi, you have a choice here. Show up at Well Water with your siblings or don’t.”
“You’re just going to kill us all when we get there,” Declan said, trying to tamp down his anger. He motioned to Lawson behind them. He’d seen the blood after Remi had started yelling “coconut.” Then he’d pieced it all together. They’d done something to Lawson, hurt him. Now he was dying. “Did you give him the same ultimatum? Show up and die, or don’t show up and have someone you love die?”
“No,” the man answered, voice clipped. “He never had a choice.”
Declan flexed his hands, uncurling and curling them into fists.
“If you’re really going to let me go, then let me take him with me.”
Dean Lawson was a walking and talking answer. He’d paid for the abduction, which meant he knew the man with the scar who’d done it. Because Declan didn’t for one second think that the man across from him now would tell him. And, honestly, if he did Declan would have a hard time believing him.
Lawson was the only silver lining of everything that was happening. A small, barely there sliver.
The man in the suit’s lips curled up into a grin.
“Like I said, Dean never had a choice,” he said. “He was always meant to die here surrounded by us, an empire made from nothing.”
Lawson must have known that.
That was why he’d told Declan and Remi what he’d done.
And that was why he hadn’t told them who he’d paid. He couldn’t. Not with a room filled with Fixers.
He might have been dying, but he hadn’t wanted to die yet.
Neither did Declan.
“I’ll go,” he said, repeating Remi’s words.
The man in the suit nodded. He didn’t flinch as Declan moved toward him and instead walked him out of the bar. Remi’s car was still parked in the same spot they’d left it in, but she and the woman who had gone after her were nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was no one around at all.
It was just him and the man in the suit.
Declan could take him right then and there. Could pull his gun out, could tackle him, could dish out a punch that splayed him out on the concrete, but Declan found that he believed in the man’s sincerity about what would happen if he didn’t show up at Well Water Cabin.
He’d lose Remi.
He’d lose his baby.
Nothing was worth that.
Instead, Declan decided to throw himself into the next part of the plan he was being forced into. He started to walk away, but the man in the suit had some last words for him.
“You’ve seen us over the years. You’ve seen what we do and you know how good we are at doing it. There’s also a lot you haven’t seen. There’s a lot you don’t know. Don’t underestimate us, Sheriff.” It wasn’t bragging. It was a warning. One he recapped. “If you or your siblings tell anyone about what’s going on, we’ll know, and it won’t end well. For any of you or your families.”
Declan almost decked the man then.
“I’ve met a lot of criminals in my life,” he said with barely contained rage. “Do you know that most of them have a code? Have some honor?”
The man in the suit sighed. He actually sighed. Then he met Declan’s eyes with a pensive stare.
“You’ve seen us over the years, and I’ve seen you Nashes over the years, too. I’ve seen you drown. I’ve seen you shot. I’ve seen you run into the darkness, run into flames, and run into places where the odds were never in your favor. You may think of yourselves as a normal family dealing in bad luck, but me? I see you as survivors, even if it’s by the skin of your teeth. I wouldn’t bet against you Nashes. You shouldn’t, either.”
Declan felt his eyebrow rise. The man in the suit gave a brief smile.
“I may not have honor, Mr. Nash,” he continued. “But I am smart. Putting all four of you in one place while threatening your partners and children? Well, anyone would be a fool to believe with certainty that you’d lose in the end. I’m just trying to remain realistic.”
Pride stirred in Declan’s chest at that, but he made sure not to show it as he asked one last question.
One that he already knew the answer to.
“Your client, the one who hired you to orchestrate all of this—he’s the one who took the triplets, isn’t he? He’s come back for them.”
The man in the suit was solemn as he answered.
“He’s come back for all of you.”
Chapter Twenty
Declan went to Caleb’s house first.
It was on the Nash Family Ranch and had been rebuilt with the help of the siblings. There was a wraparound porch with a swing on it that Declan himself had hung. That was where he found his brother sitting with his wife, Nina, and their son, Parker.
It was just after supper and they looked content.
When they saw Declan they all smiled, even Parker.
It tore at his heart as he lied.
“Hey, Caleb, I need your help on something,” he said after they greeted each other. “Do you mind coming with me?”
Nina was readjusting Parker who had started to squirm, so she didn’t see her husband’s look of concern. Declan didn’t have that triplet telepathy but he knew Caleb could feel something was majorly off. He ran his hand over his wife’s back and dipped in for a kiss against her temple.
“Sure thing,” he said to Declan. Then to her, Caleb said, “Nina, why don’t you two go over to Mom’s while we’re gone. It would be the perfect time to put together that plastic play set she’s been needing help with for the kids.”
“Oh, you mean the one you boys were supposed to put together but always seem to have something better to do?” she responded, teasing clear in her voice. She sighed, all dramatic. “I suppose I always knew us ladies were the more capable ones. Plus, Parker took too long of a nap today and I don’t see him going to bed anytime soon. Maybe this will tire him out.”
Caleb and Declan helped her get Parker and his things into the car. While he gave Nina a quick kiss, Declan ruffed up Parker’s hair and then gave him a tight hug. Caleb, seeing this, spent more time with the goodbye.
It wasn’t until they were in the car and heading to pick up Desmond that Caleb turned to him.
“When you went to that bar you told us all to watch our families because they weren’t safe. What’s going on? And where’s Remi? Why are we in her car but she’s not here?”
“I can’t tell you yet,” Declan said with the stiffness of holding on to a world of worries for far too long. “We need to get Desmond and Madi first.”
Caleb didn’t argue. He didn’t question. He listened to his big brother and Declan loved him for it.
Desmond’s house had been built behind the main home they’d grown up in and their mother currently lived in but, from Declan’s earlier instructions, he and his wife were at the main house. Nina got to the house a few seconds before they did and Caleb jumped out of the car to help her and Parker into the house. Desmond came back outside with him as Declan hung back.
Desmond’s limp only made Declan feel worse. It must have shown. Both brothers shared a look between them after seeing Declan.
All three got into the car in silence.
Then they were on Winding Road and heading toward Hidden Hills Inn.
“Julian will know something’s wrong,” Desmond said without prompting. “He won’t let her leave without an explanation. Not unless he knows she won’t be in any danger.”
Declan gritted his teeth.
“Then she’ll have to lie.”
“It’s that bad?” Caleb asked.
“It’ll be worse if anyone thinks something’s wrong.”
That was enough to keep the boys quiet until they made it to the bed-and-breakfast Madi and Julian lived at and ran. There were no guests currently at the inn, but as soon as they cut the engine Julian appeared in the doorway of the house.
“Let me go get her,” Caleb said, grabbing Declan’s shoulder to keep him from getting up. “I’m closer with Julian than you two.”
Declan didn’t argue that. Julian had saved Caleb’s life and, since then, the two had become close. In fact, Parker’s middle name was Julian. Something that had made the older Julian tear up when he’d found out.
Their friendship was put to the test that night. Declan and Desmond couldn’t hear what they said, but it was clear that Julian knew something was wrong, too, and wasn’t about to let Madi be a part of it. Then Madi appeared. She joined the conversation and must have strengthened whatever argument Caleb had been making.
Then all three went inside.
Only Madi and Caleb came back out a minute later.
Caleb slid into the back seat and Madi buckled into the front.
They left Hidden Hills Inn and were quiet until they got to where Declan hadn’t been in years.
He parked next to the river he had drowned in once. It was on land that no one currently lived on. He got out and the triplets followed.
The night was peaceful and cold.