He texted Buddy again, hoping the man would respond so he could tell Jax just how bad this threat was. But still no answer. Jax prayed that was because Buddy was still playing dead and not because he actually was.
Jax’s phone dinged before he could put it away, and he saw Jericho’s name on the screen. Hank’s behind the center barn but can’t see you. I’m on the way.
Hurry, Jax texted back, because he was certain he was going to need help. And soon.
“Jax?” someone called out. “Don’t shoot. It’s me.” And it was a voice he instantly recognized.
Belinda.
A dozen thoughts went through his head. There was no reason for her to be here. No good one, anyway. But there was one bad reason.
Was Belinda the person who’d been trying to kill Paige and him?
It sickened him to think it was her, someone who’d been so close to him and his family. But Jax pushed all of that aside so he could deal with this.
“Come out so I can see you,” Jax demanded.
He didn’t expect her to obey that order. And that’s why he was surprised when she did.
With the rain sheeting down in front of the van’s headlights, he saw the movement. Then the person stepped out, not from the back but rather from the driver’s seat.
It was Belinda all right.
And she started walking straight toward him.
* * *
PAIGE HAD FOLLOWED Jax’s orders to a tee. Except for one thing. One thing he wasn’t going to like.
She hadn’t hidden as he’d wanted. She couldn’t. Not with him out there facing heaven knew what.
One of the first things she’d done after faking her death was to take firearms training. It had meant overcoming a lot of old fears, but she’d managed it, and that training might be needed now to help Jax.
She kept to the side of the window in the living room, and she continued to glance out. Nothing.
Well, not at first.
Then she’d heard Belinda call out to Jax, and Paige had known that this situation was about to take an ugly turn.
Paige readied her gun when Belinda came out from behind the wheel of the van. Belinda was wearing a light-colored dress that stood out in the darkness, and when she came out in full view and started walking toward the cruiser, Paige realized something was missing.
Belinda wasn’t carrying a gun.
And with the way the rain was making her dress cling to her body, it would be next to impossible for her to have a concealed weapon.
Still, why was she here? And why had she been driving that van?
And where was Jax?
Paige was sure he was out there somewhere, but she’d lost sight of him after he’d jumped off the porch.
Judging from the sound of his voice when he’d called out to Belinda, he was still somewhere near the house. Paige prayed he had taken cover, because while Belinda might not be armed, someone in that van certainly was. And that person had shot at Buddy.
“Jax?” Belinda said again. She kept walking, her hands stiff as boards by her sides, her focus on the cruiser. If she felt the rain whipping at her, she didn’t have any reaction to it.
“Did you shoot Buddy?” Jax asked. “Did you hurt him?” Definitely near the cruiser. Or maybe under it.
Belinda shook her head, but there was no outcry of innocence. She seemed dazed, or else she was pretending to be. This could all still be her doing. Some kind of ruse to draw Jax out, but if so, why wasn’t Belinda trying to do the same to Paige? The woman hated her, not Jax.
Didn’t she?
Maybe Belinda wanted Jax to suffer because he’d allowed his ex-wife back in his life. Except he hadn’t really done that—despite what’d happened earlier in the kitchen. There’d been no reconciliation. But perhaps Belinda didn’t know that.
Belinda stopped when she was still about five yards from the cruiser, and since she was still in the path of those van headlights, it was easier for Paige to see her. Easier for Paige to take aim at her, too.
And that’s what Paige did.
“Buddy’s hurt, I think,” Belinda finally said. She sounded as woozy as she looked, and she wobbled a little. She made an uneasy glance over her shoulder. “You don’t have much time. You have to do this before Jericho and the others get here.”
“What do we have to do?” Jax challenged.
“I’m supposed to give you a message.” The woman made yet another glance over her shoulder. “If Paige comes out right now and surrenders, then no more bullets will be fired.”
Everything inside Paige went still. Surrender. Somehow, she’d known it would come down to this. Whoever was in that van wanted her dead.
Darrin or Leland.
Of course, Belinda could be faking this, too. That way, she could pretend someone else was behind it so she could get Paige out of the picture while allowing herself to get back in Jax’s good graces one day.
“Who told you to give me that message?” Jax asked.
Belinda shook her head again. “I’m not sure.” Her gaze darted around again. “He was wearing a mask. All four of them were wearing masks, and only one did all the talking. I didn’t recognize his voice.”
Oh, mercy. If Belinda was telling the truth, then there were four hired killers practically on their doorstep. Except one of them might have been the person doing the hiring, if Belinda hadn’t.
“Buddy needs medical attention,” Belinda went on. “I’m supposed to tell you that an ambulance can come right away as soon as Paige gets in the van.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Jax shouted. Not to Belinda. The message was no doubt meant for the men in the van. “And what about you? What happens to you in this so-called plan?” Jax added. Now, that was addressed to Belinda.
Belinda appeared to be fighting back tears. “They said I could stay here, that I’d be all right.” The fight against the tears—whether real or pretend—was a fight that Belinda lost, and she started to sob.
“Hurry up!” someone yelled. “Quit your crying and tell him the rest now.” A man. And he wasn’t inside the van. It sounded as if he was much closer to the house.
Paige’s breath stalled in her throat. Was someone about to break in?
The security alarm would go off if a window broke or if someone came in through the door, but it’d be too late by then. She’d find herself in the middle of a gunfight.
“I don’t want them to hurt Matthew,” Belinda sobbed.
“Tell him the rest now,” the man repeated.
It took Belinda a couple of seconds to speak, and even then she continued to sob. “If Paige doesn’t come out now and surrender, there’s a gunman near the main house. He climbed out through the back of the van and made his way there on foot. He’s got a rifle, and he has orders to start shooting.”
Paige’s breath didn’t just stall. It vanished.
No.
This couldn’t be happening.
“Paige?” the man called out.
He sounded even closer than before. Maybe on the front porch, though she hadn’t seen him move from the van to there.
“I’m not giving you any more time,” the man yelled. “If you’re not out of that house in five seconds, your son will pay for it.”
Paige had no doubts, none, that he was telling the truth. Her little boy was in danger. Jax, too. And the only chance she had of stopping it was to go out there.
“Paige, no!” Jax shouted. “Don’t do it.”
But she was already on the move.
She disarmed the system so the alarm wouldn’t sound. Paige wanted to be able to hear the monster who was responsible for this. She wanted to try to kill him before he did any damage.
With her gun gripped in her hand, Paige threw open the door and stepped out onto the front porch.
Chapter Seventeen
This was not what Jax wanted. He wanted Paige in the house, out of the line of fire, but here she was out in the open. Worse, judging from the sound of the hired gun’s
voice, he was somewhere in the front yard.
No doubt waiting to grab her. Or kill her.
Jax had to do something to stop that.
He scrambled out from the cruiser, keeping close to the house, and ran to the front porch as fast as he could. He didn’t call out for Paige because he didn’t want the gunman or anyone inside that van to try to take him out before Jax got to her.
The moment he reached the porch, he grabbed hold of Paige and pulled her to the ground. He wasn’t able to break her fall, which meant he’d probably hurt her, but it was better than her being out in the open and gunned down.
Someone fired a shot, and it blasted into the house right behind them. Another inch, and it would have hit Jax in the head. Jax pushed Paige even lower, until she was flat against the ground, and he lay across her, trying to protect her. He prayed it would be enough.
“I had to come out here,” Paige insisted. “To protect Matthew. Belinda said there was a shooter in place.”
“I’m pretty sure that was a bluff. There are a dozen men patrolling the grounds around the house. They wouldn’t let a shooter get that close.”
He hoped.
And while he was hoping, Jax added that if shots were indeed fired there, Matthew and the others would be safe in the playroom at the center of the house. Certainly, Jericho had alerted the family to trouble, and they would go in there.
Paige shook her head. “I just panicked.”
Heck, so had he. Hearing his son threatened like that had made him want to tear these fools limb from limb. And he still might do that before the night was over. But for now, Jax needed to do some damage control.
First, he checked to see if Belinda had gotten down on the ground. She had. If she was innocent in all of this, he didn’t want her caught in the cross fire, and if she was guilty, he didn’t want her in a good position to try to shoot at them or call out orders to those thugs.
Of course, Jax hadn’t seen a gun anywhere on her, and she didn’t appear to be wearing any kind of communicator. That still didn’t mean she wasn’t calling the shots for this fiasco.
“Without lifting your head,” Jax whispered to Paige, “try to keep an eye on Belinda.”
Paige nodded and maneuvered beneath him just enough so she could do that. “Is Jericho coming?”
“He should be here any minute.” In fact, maybe he was already there. Jax wasn’t sure if his brother was going to do a quiet approach or not.
And it was quiet right now.
Too quiet.
Jax listened, trying to pick through the sounds of the rain and make sure that hired thug wasn’t trying to sneak up on them. However, he didn’t hear any footsteps, but he heard voices coming from the van.
Someone—two men from the sound of it—seemed to be arguing.
Maybe that would work in their favor. If the shooters were distracted, Jax could maybe do something about that idiot at the front of the house.
Jax moved, trying to keep his body in front of Paige in case the shots started again. He could still hear the two men arguing, and he hoped it was distracting the guy in the front. Jax crawled to the edge of the porch, looked around. But didn’t spot him.
Where the hell was he?
And Jax hoped that he wasn’t trying to make his way to the main house.
Jax was so focused on looking for the goon that the sound of the gunshot startled him. His heart jumped to his throat.
Paige.
Had the goon shot her?
He couldn’t look behind him fast enough. But she was all right and looking as confused and worried as he was. Jax hoped that she would realize the shot hadn’t gone anywhere near the main house. This one was much, much closer.
“Got one of them,” someone called out. “I’m pretty sure this one’s dead. He was trying to sneak up on you from the back porch.”
Hank.
Thank God. The last Jax had seen of Hank, he’d been in his truck, but obviously he’d gotten out and moved closer to the house. Good.
One down. Three to go.
Or maybe four if Belinda was involved.
However, Jax was beginning to believe she was a victim in all of this. She was still sobbing, so either she was innocent or she regretted this stupid, dangerous plan that’d been set into motion. A plan that might have already killed Buddy.
“Jericho,” Paige said, and she motioned toward the end of the road.
Jax looked in that direction and saw the flash of the blue lights. Obviously his brother had decided not to go with the quiet approach. Maybe it would spur the arguing men to use the van to try to get away.
They wouldn’t.
Not while they were sandwiched between Jericho and Jax. Still, it would get them away from Paige, and he wanted her as far from the gunfire as possible. And it was likely that van was loaded with enough firepower to do some serious damage. Not good. Because as long as this fight went on, they were all in danger, and an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get to Buddy.
In case the gunmen stayed put and made their stand here, Jax knew he had to get Paige to better cover. He tossed her his phone. “Text Jericho. See if he can open the cruiser.”
Paige gave a shaky nod and fired off the text. They waited. Not long. And she shook her head. “He’s too far away. But he’s going to drive closer.”
Maybe that wouldn’t take long. Because Jax heard something that put a knot in his stomach.
Silence.
The men were no longer arguing. By now, they must have seen the lights of Jericho’s cruiser, and they were no doubt ready to do whatever it was they’d come here to do.
Jax hurried back to Paige. “Stay low and move toward the cruiser. Fast. The second Jericho unlocks it, get inside.”
They’d hardly made it a foot when the next shot came. It slammed into the ground way too close to them.
“Keep moving,” Jax told Paige, and he turned, hoping to see the shooter.
No such luck, but since he had the extra ammo in his jeans pocket, Jax fired a shot directly into the windshield of the van. The bullet didn’t shatter the glass. Didn’t stop the shooter, either.
Because the shots started coming, and not just from one angle. All three of the remaining gunmen were shooting, not just at them. Plenty of those shots were going in Jericho’s direction.
Thankfully, Paige just crawled, and Jax followed, trying to pinpoint the exact location of at least one of the gunmen so he could try to send a shot his way.
And then Jax heard it.
Not the sound of the shots. Nor of the gunmen. Even with the slap of the rain against his hat, Jax heard the voice coming from the van.
“Daddy.”
Hell, no.
It was Matthew.
* * *
PAIGE FROZE, THE sound of her baby’s voice slamming through her as hard as a bullet. Oh, God.
Had they kidnapped him?
Were they going to hurt him to try to draw her out?
Matthew’s voice came again, the sound slicing through her. “Daddy.”
She started to scramble toward the van, but Jax caught on to her and pulled her right back to the ground. This time, though, he didn’t cover her with his body. He maneuvered them to the cruiser, and they ducked behind it.
But Paige didn’t want to stop there. She had to keep moving. Had to get to her son.
Everything inside her was screaming for her to help Matthew. It didn’t help that her little boy’s voice kept coming from that van. Repeating that one word.
Daddy.
It sounded like a plea for help.
Were they hurting him?
Jax took hold of her chin, forcing eye contact with her. “It’s a recording. It has to be. Think this through. If these men had taken Matthew, someone at the house would have texted me.”
Paige had to fight through the panic to let that sink in. Jax was right. Unless, of course, the absolute worst had happened—that these monsters had managed to break into the main house, kill or incapacita
te everyone inside and then kidnap Matthew.
“We would have heard gunfire,” Jax added, as if he’d known exactly what she was thinking. “The ranch hands wouldn’t have let anyone that close to the house without there being gunfire.”
True. And she remembered that someone had planted the camera with an eavesdropping device on the porch swing. Paige had seen Belinda out there on that very swing with Matthew. At some point Matthew could have said, “Daddy,” and the device could have recorded it.
And these monsters were using it now to torture Jax and her.
It’d almost worked. Paige had nearly bolted out there, and that was almost certainly what this killer wanted her to do.
“Matthew!” Belinda shouted. “You can’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him.”
Paige couldn’t see the woman, but she understood the sheer panic and terror that Belinda was likely feeling. And that didn’t sound fake.
“Damn. Belinda’s running out there,” Jax mumbled.
Belinda screamed when there were more shots, and Paige flattened herself on the ground so she could look beneath the cruiser.
Unlike Jax.
He was no longer down but rather peering over the trunk. Paige wanted to shout for him to get down, but she saw the movement from the corner of her eye.
Someone scrambled toward Belinda, and she hoped it was Hank. No such luck. It was a man dressed all in black, and he was wearing a ski mask. He grabbed hold of Belinda’s hair, dragging her to a standing position in front of him, and he hauled her backward until they were against the detached garage.
And the thug put the gun to Belinda’s head.
For the first time since this latest nightmare had started, Paige actually hoped that Belinda was part of this. If so, she was safe. Her own hired gun wouldn’t shoot her. But if she was innocent, then she was in grave danger. She’d been a loose end that these men might want to tie up by murdering her.
“The boss man says you probably won’t care a rat about me holding the nanny at gunpoint,” the man behind Belinda shouted. “But I figure a lawman’s a lawman to the core, and you aren’t going to just hide behind that cop car or your badge and let me put a bullet in her head.”
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