“Game on.” Cody took a step, flashing him a dangerous smile. “Now where’s Megan?”
Ivan signaled to his right, and Cody saw her, arms and legs tied, bundled inside a net and hanging from the branch of a mountain mahogany tree. “You all right, baby?”
She nodded, squeaked, and squirmed inside that net like a little fish.
“You know, I’ve heard my wooing tactics need a little softening,” Cody grimly told his brother. “I’ll bet yours need a one-eighty turn.”
A crimson color spread up Ivan’s jaw and neck, turning his face red.
“It’s over, Ivan,” Cody said, counting his steps to her—eighteen … nineteen … twenty … “She’s not for you, man. And she’s not for me. She’s too good for both of us, so if she’s the reason you escaped, I suggest you do your time and reflect on what you did.”
“You made me do it!”
“Bullshit.” Hearing it, Cody realized that it was bullshit. He shook his head. “We were stupid boys, with hormones for brains.”
Ivan spat. “You lie. You took her already, didn’t you? She’s yours? She fucking loves you, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?”
“No,” he began, intending to placate him while he found a way to set Megan loose, but Megan spoke out at the same time.
“Yes, I do. I love him. I’ve always loved you, Cody. Always.” Her voice broke near the end, and it could’ve been the last little string that held Cody’s sanity together.
A thousand emotions bombarded him at once. He felt hundreds of different sensations. Like when lightning strikes, and you land on a fire pit, and you’re trampled by a pack of elephants, and you fall from a parachute, all at once.
“You don’t love me, and what in Christ’s last day were you doing at Marcel’s, Meg?” he demanded because she shouldn’t have been there.
She should not love him.
The monster, the monster had marked her little wrist, had bruised her lips …
“You were a bet, did you know that?” Ivan sneered. “Did loverboy here tell you?”
“She leaves, Ivan. Right now. This is between you and me.”
But Ivan was talking to Megan. “He knew I’d kill them if he took you out that day, and he still did it! He’s the monster, not I!” Ivan rammed his fist to his chest, shaking his head as he fought back tears. “I’ll bet fucking her has been the most exciting thing you’ve ever done in your life.” He shot the accusation like a missile at Cody and took a few steps forward. “How about I show you how a real man fucks?”
Shaking with fury, Cody spoke through his teeth. “How about you eat my shit.”
“Why don’t you eat this, brother?” Covering the space between them in a flash, he pulled out a Glock just like Cody’s and rammed the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Cody shut his eyes as he expected to explode.
Click.
He didn’t.
He opened his eyes to meet his brother’s bloodshot blue ones.
The chamber was empty. Ivan’s sick laugh echoed in the forests silence as he shoved Cody back. “I’m not killing you yet.”
“I’m getting that sense,” Cody grumbled, reaching into the back of his waistband for his own weapon …
* * *
Heart pounding, watching both men below, Megan realized that she was a fool. She was an idiot. Cody was a professional. And she had thought to follow him and do what? Face your fears … Save Cody …
What an idiot! Now she was stuck in this net, and the man she loved was down there, at the mercy of this killer, all because he’d taken the advantage by kidnapping her—oh, God.
Cody seemed to be plotting. His eyes were narrowed by the sun, but she could see him reaching behind him, weighing Ivan, and measuring his distance to the tree.
“Let me down, let me down!” she screamed, hating the trapped sensation hanging here gave her.
Ivan cut the rope so swiftly, Megan crashed to the forest floor like a falling rock. The air was knocked out of her with a whoomp, and quickly Ivan put the knife away then pulled her to her feet, his face contorted as he forcibly untangled her. “You always got the pretty girls, didn’t you, Cody? Made the football team. Made Mom and Dad so proud. Even now, you’re a goddamned cop.” He smiled thinly, cupping Megan’s breast in his free hand as he put the gun to her temple. “Does it bother you when I do this? When I have something that you want?” He massaged, and Megan bit back a strangled protest, revolted by his touch, when Cody took a menacing step forward.
“Fuck you.” Cody’s breathing became ragged, his eyes so dark, they could’ve been black. Megan feared for him, for herself, kept remembering the bodies, the way this man, this man, had killed two adults at the tender age of sixteen.
“Fuck me? No, brother. I’d much rather fuck her.”
When Megan kicked his shin and broke free, it took Cody only seconds to reach for her, but by then Ivan had grabbed her by the throat. “You’re not going anywhere, Maggie.”
Cody whipped out his gun and aimed. “Let her go, Ivan.”
Ivan’s cold, hard laugh made the hair rise in her nape. “Ahh, Cody, always wanting to boss me around ’cause you’re a minute older. You’re not boss here, I am. I have the girl now.”
“She walks, Ivan. She walks now and we’ll settle this.”
“Oh yes? But you see … maybe she doesn’t want to walk—” he licked his tongue into her ear and her stomach roiled in disgust. “Do you know why I killed them, Maggie? Because of you. Did you know what your boyfriend did, Meg? Huh? Did you know
