“Your job is to recover my son.” Benning tossed the gun he’d taken from her duffel bag a few feet away. Hands raised in surrender, he stepped away from her, toward the shooter. Shoulder-length hair hid his features as he increased the distance between them. “I’m counting on you to do it.”
ONE STEP AT a time. Benning tensed as the bastard holding his daughter hostage slid his hand off her shoulder. With a nudge, the man who’d shot him forced her forward but kept in line with Olivia’s every move. The weight of Ana’s attention from behind tunneled through his coat and under his skin. His heart rate throbbed around the site of the new hole in his shoulder, but knowing she’d be the one protecting Olivia and that she’d do whatever it took to find Owen, eased the uncertainty tearing through him. The SOB behind the mask hadn’t given him a choice. Not really. This was the only way to ensure his mistake didn’t haunt his children forever. The spotlights positioned around the cabin reflected off the tears streaking down Olivia’s face as he closed in on her. “It’s going to be okay, baby. Ana’s going to watch you for a little bit until I can come get you. Okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Daddy, I want to go home.” Her sob broke through her tough personality, and she suddenly became the defenseless, vulnerable little girl he’d held after she’d been born, who’d cried until he’d picked her up.
“You’re going home, Liv. You just have to be strong for a little bit longer. This will all be over soon. I promise.” The words choked in his throat. He’d never lied to his kids, but this lie had slid from his mouth easily enough. He wasn’t coming home. Ana was right. As soon as the shooter got ahold of the skull Benning had taken from that wall, all of this would be over, and his children will have lost both parents before they turned seven. But he couldn’t watch them suffer for his sins any longer. Not when he could end this nightmare right now. Curling his hands into fists to keep himself from reaching out for her—to keep himself from doubting his decision—he faced the bastard who’d ripped his family apart. “You can take your hands off my daughter now.”
Wrenching free, Olivia ran straight for him and wrapped her arms around his neck as he crouched to catch her weight. “No, Daddy! No. You have to come with me.”
“So very touching,” the shooter said. “But I’m starting to run out of patience, Mr. Reeves. The more time you waste here, the less time your son has.”
His heart threatened to shatter into a thousand pieces right there in the snow between a federal agent and an armed gunman. He turned slightly, and, raising his gaze to meet Ana’s, he straightened with his daughter in his arms. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. “You have to go with Ana now, Liv. You have to go. I love you, but you have to go.”
“You can do this, Olivia.” Ana kept her gun trained on his kids’ kidnapper, every bit the federal agent he’d relied on to get him and his twins through this. “Think of all those times the investigators in your favorite books had to make a hard choice, but in the end, the hard choice is what moves the story forward and solves the case, isn’t it? Otherwise, the characters wouldn’t find out how strong they really are.”
Olivia unwrapped her arms from around his neck. She sniffled, her big blue eyes holding on to unshed tears, but he couldn’t release her. Not yet. “Yes.”
“In the end, the investigator always gets the bad guy, right?” Ana glanced toward him, a single nod all the warning she gave him a split second before understanding hit. She wasn’t talking about him or Olivia. She hobbled between the shooter and Benning, weapon raised. “They always get justice.”
“You’re making a mistake, Agent Ramirez.” The shooter took a single step forward. “If I leave empty-handed, Owen isn’t the only one who will suffer.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes over my career. This isn’t going to be one of them.” Her shoulders rose and fell on steady inhales. Right before she pulled the trigger.
Benning twisted away from the fight, his hold on his daughter tight. Pumping his legs as hard as he could, he took cover behind one of the trees with Ana close on his trail. Bark exploded to his right as a bullet impacted mere inches from his head, and he slid to his knees, shoving Olivia behind him. Ana pressed her back into the tree beside him. “What the hell are you doing? He’s the only one who can tell us where Owen is!”
“He was never going to reveal that information, Benning. He’s a killer. Killers only want one thing—to keep from getting caught.” She returned fire as the SOB took cover behind the pile of firewood Benning had been chopping that stood between them and their only way out of here. The SUV. “Wherever Owen is, there’s too much evidence that could point back to him. The only way to find your son is to identify the owner of the skull you pulled out of that wall, and we can’t do that here.” She fired another three rounds, then the gun clicked empty. They were out of ammunition. Tossing her weapon, she double-checked the shooter’s position. Pain contorted her features as she placed both hands against her thigh, and his heart jerked in his chest. “We have to get to
