Clayton Moore stares up at me with his blue eyes. There's a strange detachment to his expression, like he knows he's not walking away from this.
He's right.
He'll be taking a little ride back to Glacier's place in the back of a truck.
“Landon? Hate to tell you this, asshole, but he was dirt cheap.” A small smirk. “Kind of like his wife.” I disengage the safety and tense my finger on the trigger, moving the muzzle down to Clayton's genitals.
“I can blow your cock off before I blow your goddamn head off. Your choice. How much did you give him?” Because I need to know how much Landon's friendships, his family, his brothers were worth.
Clayton rubs a hand over his face.
“Do me a favor? Leave Rebecca out of this?”
My hands squeeze tighter, my trigger finger cramping. That's it right there, the passion in his gaze. He's in love with Rebecca. Rebecca White, Landon's wife.
“Tell me he didn't bloody know,” I whisper as Clayton sits up straight and takes in a deep breath. The bastard doesn't bother to answer my question.
“Thirty grand. That's how much your buddy was worth.” Clayton looks me right in the eyes. “You think you're better than me, don't you? Well, I'll tell you a secret, Royal McBride, we're all the fucking same. Everyone has a price. Trust me, the Saldañas, they'll find yours.”
I blink once, draw in a calming breath, and pull the trigger.
Special Agent Heather Shelley and I wait with our weapons raised as gunfire echoes around the house. It's clearly coming from outside and there's clearly a lot of it.
“I called for backup,” she says, but we both know not to hold out a ton of hope for that. There's a reason this area is referred to as falling behind the redwood curtain. The nearest metropolises are six hours North or South in either direction, nothing West but the ocean and nothing East for hundreds of miles. The Trinidad Police force is small and overworked and dealing with the situation at Sea Salt; the county police are stationed in Eureka. It'll take them at least thirty minutes to get here.
“What happened up there?” I ask, just to take my mind off the bodies around me, the labored breathing of Agent Garza. “How did you find me?”
When it's obvious nobody's on their way down into the basement just yet, Shelley moves back over to José and speaks into her radio.
“Officer down. Code 999. We need backup at 761 Forty-four Creek Road.” There's a crackling response that I can't hear over the shots outside and the ringing in my ears. Agent Shelley responds again and then shrugs out of her jacket, ignoring her own injuries as she tries to save her partner's life. Me, I keep my gun trained on that fucking door. “We were out here on a routine check. Never expected to find shit.”
“You're telling me this is a coincidence?” I ask as she puts pressure to the bright red splotch of a stomach wound. I'm afraid her partner isn't going to make it, but I don't say anything, keeping my opinion to myself. “What about the shoot-out at the grocery store?”
“We heard about it on the scanner, but we were already out here checking some other properties. There was nothing we could do. Finding you, that's just …” Agent Shelley snorts and shakes her head. “Just dumb luck, honey.”
It feels like hours before that radio buzzes again.
Help is on the way. ETA five minutes.
The sound from upstairs has died, giving way to a disturbing silence. Seconds later, boots move across the floor towards the basement door.
“Get that gun ready,” Shelley whispers as she continues to put pressure on her partner's wounds. She starts to let go, but the red bubbles and spills, staining her hands, the hideous faded carpet, her slacks. “Shit,” she murmurs, glancing up at the stairs before she looks back down at her partner. She's sitting next to me, against the edge of the couch, the only place to grab cover in this dank, depressing room. This puts her back to the door, but it's the only place she can sit safely and deal with her partner.
It's also the only thing that saves her life.
The footsteps start down the cement stairs, and two steps in, I already know: this is Royal.
His legs appear, encased in muddy denim, then his top half splattered with blood, his brutally gorgeous face.
Our eyes lock and electricity shoots through me.
Royal's gaze is dark and feral, wild with violence and heat. As soon as he sees me though, the brown color of his irises seems to glow with the warm, heady kiss of relief. In that one look alone, I can see it: he really does love me.
My heart patters in my chest and I open my mouth to call out to him when I realize what's going to happen next: Heather Shelley is going to see him. And he's a member of an outlaw gang. And he shouldn't be here. And he probably killed people upstairs. Lots of people. If all that gunfire was Wolves' gunfire then … if Heather Shelley sees their president, she becomes a loose end.