The skull. He didn’t have it. Which meant someone else had taken it from the fireplace. Not the killer. Not Benning. Then who?
“Give me... Owen, and... I’ll let you...live.” Her eyes watered, that dark gaze blurring in her vision. Or was it the lack of oxygen making her dizzy? Didn’t matter. In another thirty seconds—maybe a minute—none of this would matter. She had to stay awake, had to keep him from reaching Olivia, give Benning and his daughter a chance to run.
“I take it you’re declining my offer,” he said.
She dug her fingernails into her attacker’s skin, drawing blood. His grip faltered, and Ana took advantage. Releasing her hands from his wrists, she struck his knee as hard as she could with her heel, and he dropped. She wrapped her hand and wrist close to his ear and used her weight to slam the side of his head into the floor. Her throat burned as she breathed, the muscles alongside her neck already sore. “I take it you haven’t done nearly as much research on me as you should have.”
A glint of moonlight off metal was all she noted before pain sliced across her arm. Her body twisted with the swipe of the blade, giving her attacker enough time to close the distance between them. Targeting her midsection, he hefted her off her feet, his arms locked around her waist. Ana jabbed her elbow into the sensitive bundle of nerves at the base of his spine as he pushed her backward. Once. Twice. Pain exploded through her lower back as he rammed her into the island countertop, and her laptop crashed to the floor. She blocked the hit aimed for the right side of her jaw, but the second swing came in too fast. She hit the floor. Hard.
“I didn’t want it to end like this, Ramirez.” His footsteps reverberated off the old wood flooring as her attacker took position above her. “You were one of the good ones until you put your own selfish needs over saving that poor girl.”
Samantha Perry? How did he—
Lightning spread through her. Every breath, every movement on her part, taught her a new lesson in pain tolerance. Raising her head, she caught sight of her discarded service weapon. He’d stripped it down, removed the magazine, but she wouldn’t give up. The front door swung inward on its hinges, cold leaking into the cabin. Olivia had gotten away, but for how long? Alone, unarmed, unprotected, the girl wouldn’t last the night on her own out there in the woods. Blood dripped from her nose, the taste of salt and copper filling her mouth as she reached for her gun only a few feet away. “I’m not dead...yet.”
“Then let’s get to it, shall we?” Ripping her off the floor, he dragged her toward the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the north side of the cabin and spun her back into the glass. The window vibrated along her spine, cracks spidering outward, and her blood pressure spiked higher. “Nothing personal, Ramirez. You used to be a good agent, just not good enough to beat me.”
He landed a hard kick to her stomach, and the window shattered, sending her into darkness.
THE CRUNCH OF footsteps in snow pierced through the haze in his head.
Benning pulled his chin from his chest, but his head hit something solid. Pain exploded down his neck. Son of a... Sections of his shoulder-length hair caught in his beard. What the hell happened? His shoulders ached, the cold working into his joints, but that wasn’t what was stopping him from moving his arms. He’d been tied against a tree, with rope from the feel of it. Who—
He’d been chopping wood to distract himself after accusing Ana of being nothing more than a shell of the woman he’d fallen in love with. Regret for what he’d said had only served to push him harder, torn open the gaping wound he’d struggled to plug since she’d left. Obviously without success. He’d heard something move in the trees. Then there’d been nothing but darkness. He’d been hit from behind. Someone had knocked him unconscious. Someone knew they were here.
“Your son is running out of time, Mr. Reeves.” Motion-detecting lights cast the man in front of him into shadow, a ski mask covering the bastard’s face. Snow crunched under heavy footfalls as his attacker crouched in front of him. Gravel coated the man’s voice, but instant recognition threw Benning back to the night Owen and Olivia had been taken. It was him, the man who’d pointed a gun at him on that construction site and abducted his son. “I gave you twenty-four hours to hand over what you took from the site, and now you’ve forced me to do something I don’t want to do.” The cabin’s outdoor lights reflected off a jagged-edged blade, stained with some dark substance along the blade—blood?—and Benning leveraged his feet into the snow. “Where is the skull?”
“I don’t have it.” Truth. But apparently, neither did the SOB in front of him. Agent Cantrell had been right. Someone had gotten to the skull before the Tactical Crime Division had. Spitting the thick coating in his mouth into the snow, he set his head back against the tree. His head throbbed with his racing heartbeat. He tugged at the ropes around his wrists, but there wasn’t any give. “I can tell you one thing. The second I get out of these ropes, I’m going to kill you for taking my son.”
Lightning exploded as the bastard’s fist connected with one side of his jaw. His eyes watered, blood filling his mouth as the trees, the outline of the man in front of him, everything blurred.
“You know, Ana Sofia threatened me with the same end.” His attacker leaned in, the scent of
