South Dakota Showdown

by Nicole Helm

  Jamison tried to jump out of the way as the headlights got closer, but his body wasn’t moving at full capacity. The light caught him. Jamison moved to run, but another car came—and men materialized from the woods until he was surrounded.

  He stood, breathing heavily, unable to think of one smart action to take.

  The door of the first Jeep opened and out stepped his father, the flames dancing across his smiling face. A face all too similar to the one Jamison saw in the mirror.

  Jamison actually laughed. It was so ridiculous. So impossible. All the things he could survive and in the end it would still come back to this moment right here.

  Maybe it was fitting.

  “You’re not looking too good, son,” Ace said with a smirk.

  “And, per usual, Ace Wyatt is unharmed and unscathed. Go figure.” There were six men creating a perimeter around Jamison, all with semiautomatic guns pointed at his chest. They wouldn’t shoot—unless given the okay from Ace, or maybe if Jamison went after Ace. Then all bets would be off.

  No, they wouldn’t kill him, but they wouldn’t be afraid to hurt him if he ran, either.

  Jamison thought running and risking getting hurt might be worth the chance of escape. But if Tony was dead and Ace was here, staying put and keeping Ace busy meant a better chance for Liza and the girls to get away. The longer he could keep his father’s attention on him, the better for them.

  “So. Is this how it ends, Dad? Or do we get to have a heart-to-heart first?” Jamison had to work to keep his teeth from chattering.

  “Jamison, you underestimate me. It’s never the end until someone’s on their knees, begging.”

  “I’ve never underestimated you. I have had a few fantasies about you on your knees, begging.”

  Ace laughed. “The sad thing is, even if you could make that happen, you’d never have the balls to pull the trigger. Too much of your mother in you. She had her chances to end me, and she never could.”

  Jamison didn’t explode like he might have years ago. One thing he’d learned about his father was that he only ever brought up Mom when Jamison was actually getting to him.

  So, Jamison pushed the old hurt away, let the cold shock of all of this make his words lifeless and bored. “You still sticking by that drug overdose story? Or did you want to confess?”

  “The thing about you, Jamison, and why you’ve never been any threat to me, is you’re too good to understand how the world works. I know you weren’t behind this.” He waved a hand to encompass the flames. “You don’t have it in you. All this collateral damage, death. It’d eat you alive.”

  Jamison considered all the people who’d been inside the burning cabin, involved or complicit in eleven little girls—girls—being held captive in the stables. He had no doubt the whispers Liza had heard were correct. The girls were here to be trafficked—and likely weren’t the first group of girls.

  “That might have been true once,” Jamison replied. “It isn’t true any longer.”

  “Tell me, Jamison, why is it a child’s life is so much more precious to you than anyone else’s? Don’t we all have souls? Don’t we all have the capacity to change?”

  “You have a choice in everything you do. Children don’t.” It came out edgier than he wanted it to. His body was shaking against his will and he was beginning to fully understand he couldn’t make it out of this situation alive.

  That had been fine enough when he’d been sacrificing himself to end something. It wasn’t so fine if his father got to do it the way he’d always wanted to.

  “Everyone who can walk and talk has a choice, Jamison. I was seven years old when I was left on my own to die, but I chose to live. To lead. Just like you chose the coward’s escape, and a sad little life trying to feel important because of a badge.”

  It might have pricked at his pride some, but not enough to bite. His escape hadn’t been cowardly, and it wasn’t his badge that made him feel important. It was the fact that some days, he did get to help people. Some days, he was all that stood between a person and harm. Maybe not as many days as he’d anticipated when he’d been going through the academy.

  But enough. Helping was always enough.

  If things ended here, at his father’s hands, he’d saved eleven little girls’ lives, and that was a price he was willing to pay. Always.

  * * *

  THE CLOSER LIZA GOT, the larger the flames seemed. Still, she didn’t let that slow her steps. Until she saw a body lying still as death. She exhaled shakily, then forced herself to inhale. To calm. She stepped forward, determined to keep it together.

  She held her composure and checked to make sure it wasn’t Jamison.

  It wasn’t.

  The wave of relief almost took her to her knees, but it was hardly over yet. There was more walking to do. And more bodies on the ground.

  The next body she checked wasn’t Jamison, either, but still her heart lurched.

  It was her father. There were pieces of debris sticking out of him, and part of his body was burned. His eyes were open and unseeing. He was very clearly dead.

  She didn’t feel sad so much as horrified. Growing up in the Sons meant she’d seen a dead body before. She’d watched men shoot each other. She understood death a little too intimately, and to an extent she’d learned to detach herself from it. Had to in order to survive.

  But this was her father.

  She’d hated him for as long as she could remember, but it was her own eyes that stared back at her. She could hate him, and what he did, but it didn’t make the feelings inside her uncomplicated.

  She leaned down and closed his eyes and let out a breath to steady herself. It was good. He couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. Not her. Not Gigi. No more Carlees—at least not by his hand. Good riddance.

  As she moved to stand back up, she noticed a few things on the ground. Jamison’s backpack, for one. It wasn’t guaranteed that meant Jamison had been out here. Dad could have taken it off Jamison inside the stables, left Jamison there to die and brought the pack outside.

  But Jamison’s headlamp was also on the ground a few feet away, as if it had been knocked off him. Which meant Jamison hadn’t been in the stables when the explosion had gone off. They might have taken his backpack from him, but they would have destroyed the headlamp, not moved it out here.

  She stood, believing these signs meant Jamison was alive. Desperately needing to believe it. She walked on, checking every body she found, avoiding the cluster of men standing next to the flames of the cabin.

  They seemed to be conferring, and if they were worried about strangers infiltrating their grounds, they certainly didn’t act it.

  Jamison wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. She would have seen him in the wreckage. She would feel it. So, she had to keep looking, keep trying to find him wherever he’d gone.

  She crept forward. If Jamison had escaped all these men, he would have gone in the opposite direction of where she’d taken the girls. Too much potential to be followed if he came back to Cody’s cabin.

  He would have gone this way, hoping if he was caught or followed, they’d have no idea the girls had gone the opposite direction. He would do everything to keep the Sons off her tail.

  Maybe she should backtrack. He wasn’t dead as far as she could tell, and he wasn’t hurt if he was on the move. She should go back to Cody’s cabin and let him find her.

  No matter how many times her brain urged her to do that, her body could only seem to move forward listening to the crackle of the fire, the conversations of small groups of men. Looking out for bodies, and always seeing Jamison’s face a second before she realized—no, that was not him.

  She paused as she reached the front area of the cabin. There were a few vehicles circled in the front drive, all with their headlights pointing to the same spot.

  Everything inside her stilled as she focus
ed on the spot where all the light was directed.

  In the center of it all was Jamison.

  And Ace.

  Jamison looked awful. Bloody and singed, a gruesome piece of wood sticking out of his leg. Six men stood around them with very large-looking weapons. All pointed at Jamison.

  Liza swallowed and looked down at her sleeve. Whatever Cody had put there or done, she had no idea. But he said he’d be able to find them.

  They had to be alive for it to matter. Liza crept closer. There was no way she could take all six men. She wouldn’t even be able to create a diversion. They’d just kill her. If she was lucky they’d just kill her.

  “Let’s not do this here,” she heard Ace say. He sounded amiable, almost like he was having a pleasant business discussion.

  Cold dread formed at the base of her spine, making it hard to move or think. She knew that tone of voice. And she knew the kind of orders that came after it.

  Kill him.

  But she knew, she knew, Ace wouldn’t kill Jamison—right away. He’d torture him first, get his poetic revenge. Liza stood to her full height, even as her body shook. If she were there, they’d torture her first. He’d want to make Jamison watch.

  As much as she didn’t want to put him through that, it would keep him alive. She needed time. Time for Cody to track them however he thought he could track them. So, she couldn’t let Jamison go it alone.

  She cleared her throat and slowly stepped toward the beams of light. “Having some kind of party, Ace? And you didn’t invite me?” Her voice was light, even if her hands shook.

  Jamison swore viciously. She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back, but at least he was smart enough—or maybe just hurt enough—not to go on.

  “Ah, the Juliet to my son’s Romeo. Touching that you’d want to die with him, Liza. Really.”

  One of the armed men nudged her into the circle of light. She looked at Ace with a sharp smile. “I take it you’ve never actually read Shakespeare.”

  Ace inclined his head and one of his men stepped forward and plowed his fist into her jaw. She saw stars, but she kept her balance. She’d been taking blows since she’d been a kid.

  Of course, Jamison lunged at the man, idiot that he was, and got knocked to the ground by the butt of a gun.

  Liza crouched next to him. “Don’t. I can take it,” she whispered, letting her fingers drift gently over his temple. He was dirty and bloody, and she wanted so badly to hold on to him. She looked at Ace. She had to keep the attention off Jamison. The more Ace decided to torture her, the better chance they had.

  Jamison couldn’t take much more beating from the look of it—he was clearly in shock. So, Liza stood, helping Jamison to his feet.

  “What are you doing?” he choked out.

  She only shook her head at him. “Ace likes watching other men beat up women and little girls because deep, deep down he’s a coward.” She shot Ace another screw-you smile.

  “A coward.” Ace laughed, but there was a sneer to it. Not so easy to dismiss her when she was poking at his pride. “I see your father didn’t knock near enough sense into you.”

  “My father’s dead.” She matched his sharp smile with one of her own. “Saw him myself. What are you going to do without Tony to carry out your sadistic punishments you can’t stomach yourself?”

  He withered, and Liza felt a certain kind of triumph light her up from the inside. She was getting to him—which was quite a feat.

  She’d probably end up dead because of it, but it was satisfying one way or another.

  “You think he’s the only sick bastard ready to jump to do my bidding, Liza.” Ace sighed as if she was a particularly dim-witted child. “Surely you didn’t think your father was special. I’ll replace him once I’ve killed both of you.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

  “You’ve had so much time to kill us, Ace. Yet here we still are. Chatting.”

  “Tie her up. And gag her, for the love of God.”

  Two of the men grabbed her. She decided to fight them, because it would take more time. When one hit his gun against the back of her head, she didn’t just see stars, the world went black for a second. She clung to consciousness, but she stopped fighting.

  They tied her up roughly, shoved a gag in her mouth with even more force. Her vision had doubled, but slowly came back to clarity.

  Jamison was watching her, murder in his eyes. She realized she’d miscalculated more than she cared to admit, because with that look on his face he was going to get himself killed long before help came.

  “You do pose a very interesting question, though, Liza. One, I assume, has kept you both up at night.” Ace smiled again. “Many nights. For many years. Is that shadow going to materialize into everything I ran away from?”

  Ace moved toward Liza. She refused to let fear grip her because it would show up on her face. When Ace took her chin in his hand, though, she couldn’t help but recoil.

  He watched her with a glint she knew too well. She’d seen that look so many times over the years on her father’s face. A man who enjoyed inflicting pain on people.

  She’d never seen Ace actually hurt anyone. Order someone else to kill or torture, yes, but she’d never seen him do the dirty work. She wasn’t so sure she’d be able to say the same after tonight—if she’d ever be able to say anything at all.

  “You want to know why you both survived as long as you did? Because, Liza, you’re less than nothing. No one cares about you, so hurting you doesn’t help me any. Or didn’t.”

  He turned his gaze to Jamison, though he kept his hand on her face. “I was waiting for you to have a son, Jamison. So, I could take him away from you like you took mine away from me. I know you don’t value your own life, but you would have valued a child’s.” His gaze returned to Liza. “And it appears you value hers now. That’s good to know.”

  He released Liza’s chin and walked toward one of the cars. “Take that stick out of my son’s leg, then put them both in my Jeep,” he ordered one of his men. “Don’t communicate anything over the walkie. Follow my driver.”

  All Liza could think was, Please, Cody, hurry.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They were both going to die.

  Jamison could come up with no other possible outcome of being shoved into his father’s vehicle. Hurt, probably as injured as he’d ever been. His father was going to win.

  Scratch that. There had to be a way he could save Liza. Had to be. He couldn’t give up on her. He’d saved too many people under next-to-impossible circumstances because he’d believed he could. This wouldn’t be any different.

  One of his father’s other goons pushed Liza in on the opposite side. Dad and his driver sat up front and conferred about something, but Jamison couldn’t hear.

  Maybe once the Jeep got going, one of them could open the door and jump out. They’d maybe die, or be hurt enough to eventually die, but it would be better than whatever Ace was cooking up.

  Jamison wasn’t tied up like Liza. He’d love to believe it was out of stupidity, but no doubt Ace had some sick reason for the lack of restraint. Maybe to give them hope. Maybe he wanted them to try to escape so he could make the game last. Maybe he knew Jamison just didn’t have it in him to fight.

  But he’d find a way. Someway.

  If there was anything Jamison understood about his father, it was that he liked the long game. Some people grew up suffering, and when they pulled themselves out of it they wanted to help end others’ suffering. So, no one had to go through what they had. Jamison understood that one.

  Others, like Ace, grew up and out of their desperate circumstances wanting to inflict that pain on someone else—and those people almost always escalated—inflicting more and more of that pain. And then even more.

  Still, Jamison calculated the odds. He could disable his father’s driver with one w
ell-timed blow, which could cause an accident. Of course, Ace and his driver were buckled—Jamison and Liza were not. Survival wasn’t in their favor.

  As he went through several other scenarios, Liza inched her way over on the back seat. Despite her hands being tied around her back, she maneuvered herself until she could reach her fingers out to brush against his hand.

  He took her hand in his, then tested the bonds. He could untie them. It would give them more of a chance.

  Her fingers curled around his and squeezed, and she shook her head.

  Jamison knew he couldn’t talk, couldn’t risk his father overhearing anything, but it just about killed him to keep his mouth shut.

  Then she started to...tap his palm. At first he thought she was trying to get his attention, but she already had it. There were pauses between the taps. Hard taps and light taps. Not Morse code...or any code he knew.

  But Cody had done that. Cody, who had access to things. Was she trying to tell him that Cody was going to help them?

  Liza was here without the girls, which meant she’d gotten them somewhere safe—Cody. Cody had the girls, and Cody potentially had the means to save them. Potentially.

  He supposed he had to stay alive to find out. Which meant outwitting his father. He’d be stupid to think it would be easy.

  But maybe with Liza, it could be possible.

  “It’s real sweet you two found your way back to each other. Real sweet,” Ace said, curling his arm behind the driver’s seat and turning his body so he could face them. He smiled genially, like a real father might look at his son and his son’s girlfriend.

  But he was not a real father, no matter how well he could put on the mask of one.

  Liza made a noise, but it was muffled by the gag in her mouth. Probably for the best, because she couldn’t articulate something snarky to Ace.

  “It’s a shame about your sister,” Ace said, still smiling pleasantly at Liza.

  Liza’s eyebrows drew together, but since she couldn’t talk, Jamison had to ask the questions. Which was always a minefield when it came to Ace. Still, he couldn’t let the information sit there if only because Liza would want answers—and would get them one way or another.