“How?” Damn it. She wasn’t in any condition to go up against this guy again. Neither of them was. He bit back the agony tearing through his shoulder. Olivia huddled into his side as another bullet ripped past them.
“There’s nowhere you can run, Mr. Reeves,” the man in the mask said. “Nowhere you can hide that I won’t find you. One way or another, I will recover what you took from me, and when I do, I’m going to enjoy what comes after.”
“This guy is so full of himself, but he is the one with the gun.” She shook her head, keeping tabs on their attacker. “Do you trust me?”
Benning slowed his hand’s path along Olivia’s back. Despite the fact Ana had walked away from him all those years ago, she’d nearly died protecting his daughter from the madman on the other side of that woodpile, stepped between him and a loaded gun and calmed Olivia through this whole thing. Trust her? Hell. He’d take another bullet if that was what she needed of him. “Yes.”
“Then I’m going to go for the gun you tossed when you decided to surrender yourself over to this psychopath.” She shoved the phone the shooter had handed over into her coat pocket. Her voice remained level despite the lack of color in her face and the fact her hands were shaking as she repositioned herself behind the tree. “When I give you the signal, you and Olivia make a run for the SUV. A spare set of keys are in the glove compartment. The SUV has a tracking device. My team will be able to find you.”
Warning screamed through his system. “Ana, wait. You don’t know how many rounds are left in that gun. You’ll be exposed for however long it takes you to find where I dropped it.”
She crossed the open space between the trees they’d taken cover behind, staying low. Another bullet flew over their heads, but with those mesmerizing hazel-green eyes locked on his, the world around the three of them disappeared. “No matter what happens, I need you to promise me you won’t come back for me. Take your daughter and get as far from here as you can. Understand?”
Blood drained from his face and neck as her words registered. She didn’t think she was going to make it out of here alive. “Ana, no. You’re not—”
“Yes, I am.” Fisting her hands in his T-shirt, she crushed her mouth to his. She pierced the seam of his lips with her tongue, and, for a brief moment, they were back in the cabin. Her covered in cookie dough, him desperate to taste her one more time. In those short seconds, everything had felt so...right between them. As though she’d never left. He’d been complete. But sooner than he wanted, Ana pulled away, and the cold crept back in. Releasing her grip from his shirt, she stood as best she could with the wound in her thigh. “You promised Olivia she could tour TCD headquarters when this was over.”
He hugged his daughter tighter as he stared up at the woman who’d saved his life, saved his family. “Thank you.”
“Don’t come back for me.” She took a deep breath, almost steeling herself, and charged from the tree line.
Gunfire exploded around them as Benning hauled himself and Olivia to his feet and raced as fast as he could through the trees. His daughter’s weight tugged on the bullet wound in his shoulder as snow threatened to trip him every step of the way. He couldn’t look back, couldn’t slow down as his daughter’s tears soaked into his neckline, couldn’t stop the hole in his chest from splintering wider. His instincts screamed for him to turn around, but Ana had ordered him to get Olivia as far from here as possible. He had to keep going. He had to leave her behind. He curled his hands tighter in his daughter’s pajamas. This was the choice Ana had asked him to make. “We’re almost there, baby. Close your eyes. We’re almost there.”
Olivia beat against his back with her small hands. “Daddy, we have to go back! Ana needs our help! Go back!”
“We can’t go back, Liv.” His eyes burned at her pleas. His daughter wasn’t the only one who’d gotten attached to the federal agent assigned to recover his son, but he’d keep his promise. The SUV came into view, and Benning left the protection of the trees. The back window had been shattered, glass crunching under his boots as he rounded the driver’s side of the vehicle. He wrenched open the back door and buckled Olivia inside, then climbed behind the wheel. “Ana’s going to be okay. She’s a federal agent, remember? She’s trained for this.”
Whether he’d meant the words for his daughter or for himself, he didn’t know.
A final gunshot echoed off the mountains, and he slowed his reach for the glove compartment. Ana. His heart threatened to beat straight out of his chest as the seconds ticked by. Maybe a full minute. No other shots registered. Did that mean—
Movement shifted in the rearview mirror.
“Get down!” He spun in his seat a split second before a bullet cracked the front windshield. Olivia’s scream spurred Benning into action. He reached for the keys in the glove box, hit the remote start, and shoved the vehicle into Drive. Snow kicked up behind them, blocking his view of the shooter as they fishtailed onto the main road. Leaving the cabin, the deadline and Ana behind.
FLAKES FELL IN even sheets as Agent Evan Duran followed the fast-vanishing trail of footprints around the back of the property. The TCD safe house had been compromised by a single shooter determined to get his hands on the skull Benning Reeves had recovered from a Britland Construction property. Only now the evidence was missing. Along with Ramirez.
“What the hell happened here?” JC Cantrell straightened from a crouch beneath the shattered window on the north side of the house.
“I have no
