Page 66 of Sniper's Pride

Griffin spent another long while listening, tracking the sounds until he’d come up with a map of where the men were down below. He couldn’t hear Mariah, but he also didn’t hear anything that suggested she was being abused in any way.

If he had, he would have kicked a hole in the floor and gone down shooting.

When he moved again, his eyes were fully adjusted to the gloom of the barn’s interior. He walked the length of the loft once more, keeping his gaze trained to the significant cracks between the floorboards.

And this time, he saw her.

Mariah was tied to a chair of her own, also with duct tape. Her head was slumped forward slightly, making her hair a kind of wild blond curtain around her face. He couldn’t see any evidence of a gag, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t shoved anything in her mouth.

And when he stopped and stared hard, he could see that she kept testing the duct tape around her wrists and ankles.

If she was hurt, she wasn’t too hurt to keep looking for a way out.

And Griffin took the first deep, real breath he’d allowed himself since he’d realized she was missing.

The three douchebags were arranged around her. One was sitting with his feet thrust out before him like he was at a picnic, his back to an old stall. The big, burly one with a beard was muttering into his phone and pacing. And all Griffin could see of the third one was a hint of his boots as he walked back and forth in front of the barn’s big doors, suggesting he was the guard.

When he satisfied himself with what he could see through the floorboards, he carefully made his way back to Mariah’s mother, crouched down before her again, and eased the duct tape gag from between her lips.

She swallowed and worked her jaw. He knew from experience that she was trying to make her mouth feel like hers again.

Then she leveled those eyes that were entirely too much like her daughter’s at him.

It felt like a blow.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t scream and let them know you’re here, whoever the hell you are.”

Her voice was raspier, but it was the same honey-and-cream drawl that made a meal out of every word and then some.

Griffin didn’t shift his gaze from hers. “Because you want to live.”

“Not sure that’s on the menu, sugar.”

Sugar.He felt the last of the barriers he’d built inside himself crumble, and he didn’t fight it. Not there in a sweaty Georgia hayloft with a woman who looked too much like Mariah but wasn’t her.

He wanted to hear Mariah call himsugaragain, assuming she lived through this.

Griffin intended to make sure she did.

“Did they hurt you?”

“It didn’t feel real good to get bashed over the head and tossed in the back of a pickup truck, but that’s any old Friday night around these parts.” Rose Ellen’s mouth curved into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But no. They didn’t really hurt me.”

He nodded gruffly, happier to hear that news than maybe he should have been. And relieved in ways he didn’t want to examine.

“Is she okay?” Rose Ellen asked, her voice scratchier than before. “I heard her when they brought her in, but...”

“She’s okay, as far as I can tell from up here.”

Rose Ellen swallowed again. “You’re going to have to put that gag back in.”

“I know.” Griffin shifted his weight to his heels. “But not yet.”

Rose Ellen’s eyes gleamed as if she were fighting back emotion, but all she did was offer a jerky sort of nod.

And then they both settled in for the wait.

Sixteen

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