His hands started itching with the need to go out there and just … hug her. Then, he noticed the man creeping up beside her. He’d been leaning against the lamppost, covered head to toe in a black gabardine coat. Yeah, a damned gabardine, in this stinking hot weather. Alarm bells clanged inside his head, and his instincts kicked into overdrive.
“Two o’clock,” Cody barked. “Megan’s here. Dammit. Fuck! Goddammit!”
He slammed the phone back on its cradle and pushed past the waiter and shouldered through a party of eight that was just coming in through the revolving doors.
“Excuse me! Move.” When no one seemed to think he was serious, he pulled out his badge and roared, “GET OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY!”
He charged outside, his heart thundering, his gun drawn, his thighs burning as he kicked them into the hardest run he’d ever taken in his life.
She was gone.
Zach Rivers stood there in their stead, his eyes shielded by a pair of aviators, but Cody didn’t need to see his gaze. The grimness of his stance, his mouth, said it all.
He took her. He took her. That murdering motherfucker took her.
“I’m sorry, man, he was armed,” Zach grumbled. “I couldn’t stop him without risking her getting hurt.”
For a wild second, Cody refused to believe what he was witnessing. Hearing. Zach fucking Rivers, a reckless motherfucker, just standing there while his murdering sonofadevil killer of a brother took Megan into the underworld.
“What the fuck are you doing standing here!” Cody exploded. He spun around and scanned his surroundings, wildly searching for a direction, a clue to where they’d gone.
“He wants you,” Zach’s words made him stop. “Just you. No monkey business. No wires. No cops. He asked you to meet him at the Tonto National Forest, and if you do, he’ll let her go and no harm will come to either of you.”
“Like hell I buy that!”
“Your call, man, just tell me what you want.”
And Cody had one second, one second, to decide. He would have liked to have an army follow him. He would have liked to drop a missile right over that sick gorrilla’s head. But he had Megan, and Cody wouldn’t risk a hair on her body.
His entire body, his entire system, was having a short circuit. He couldn’t think right, couldn’t focus. Every cell in his body burned with the need to kill Ivan Nordstrom. And get Megan back to safety, somewhere far away from Ivan. Far away from Cody.
“Just stay the hell put,” he snarled. “If I’m not back with her in half an hour—you know what to do.”
“Don’t piss him off, Cody,” Zach warned.
Cody charged to his car and yanked open the door with a glare. “You should’ve said that to him.”
As he drove full speed in the direction of the national forest, he told himself he was focused. Focused on one and only thing: Ivan. And getting both Ivan and himself out of Megan’s life forever. He was not thinking of what Ivan could be doing to her now—no, he couldn’t function if he considered the possibilities.
He was not thinking of how well her body fit to his last night. Or how hard they’d moaned.
Or the fact that he was completely, indisputably in love with her.
Yeah, this morning his mood had been perfectly morose. Even the guys at the station had wondered why he wasn’t joking today, or ribbing someone, or acting like all was well.
Because it wasn’t well.
It hadn’t been well for fifteen years.
And it would not be well until his brother was out of their lives. Until Cody no longer posed a threat to Megan—a danger.
He had, what? Like two hundred and twelve homicide cases under his belt? So why did he continue to feel like the foolish teenager who’d been too engrossed in his cock to see what was happening in his own home?
Because that woman makes you a nitwit! Now focus!
He pulled over into an empty parking spot, expecting Ivan to be waiting in the shed by the clearing. In the vast rocky terrain, there was plenty of space to hide a body or two.
Was that what Ivan planned?
Disturbed by the thought, he yanked open the car trunk, armed himself with as many weapons as he could without them being too obvious, then let the trunk slam shut behind him as he made his way through the dirt path.
To the right the clearing led to a lake, which usually allowed for campers to park their RVs, toast marshmallows by a fire, and dip their toes into water. But this afternoon the space was flat and empty, and the lack of noise lent a gloom to the area that Cody found quite the match to his mood. In fact, a morgue was quite the match to his mood.
He spotted Ivan sitting down on a red boulder, dressed like their mother used to dress them to go to Mass: in suits and ties.
Except Ivan was wearing Cody’s suit and tie.
So not only was his brother a murderer and a kidnapper, but he was a thief, too. A fact that Cody had noticed the day Ivan had broken into his home, but had not dwelled upon until now.
Yeah, in that silky blue tie that happened to be Megan’s favorite, Cody could tell Ivan thought he was the man. Cody planned to knock him down a peg or two.
“Nice tie, asshole.”
Ivan smiled. When he did,
