Page 66 of Mountain Defender

“No!” The gun wavers. “Get out! I’ll call the cops! I’ll shoot you!”

A low snort sounds from behind me. Alec. He knows how unlikely that is.

“You won’t,” I tell him. Then my arm snaps out, a blur of movement honed from years of practice, crashing into his.

Mavers yelps in pain. His hand goes limp. The gun drops to the ground, and Alec rushes forward to snatch it up with a gloved hand.

It takes Mavers a second to realize what happened. His eyes project his movement—flickering to the front door—before he tries to make an escape. But I’m more than prepared for it, lunging forward just as he starts to move, grabbing him and throwing him to the floor.

Looming over him, my face still shadowed by my hat and the hoodie pulled around it, I bark, “Iwillkill you, Karl. My friend here thinks it could complicate things. But honestly, I don’t give a shit.” I pause. “But. If you’re honest with me, Imightchange my mind.”

Mavers glances at the front door again, a desperate search for freedom.

Alec comes over and pulls Mavers off the floor, then manhandles him over to the dining room table. Shoving him into a chair, he threatens, “Sit there. Don’t think about moving. And by the way, I’m okay with him killing you. I think it would be doing the world a favor, really.”

Mavers glances between me and Alec, fear shifting to outright panic. “What do you want? Money? Drugs? All I have is some weed. Maybe a couple hundred in cash. If you think I’ve got more, you have the wrong person.”

“No.” In the dark of the room, his eyes gleam wildly. I see what Rory described, those white eyes staring at her, and a surge of rage courses through me. “I want the truth.”

“The truth? What are you talking about?”

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” I reply, my voice now icy cold. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about thewoman you tried to kill. Who sent you. How much they paid. I want names. Times. Places. Everything.”

Mavers shakes his head quickly. “I didn’t try to kill any woman. What are you talking?—”

My fist lashes out, crashing into his face. Something snaps. Blood pours from his nose and down his chin. “The woman in Bliss. The one you attacked in the woods. The one you hit. Choked. And when that didn’t work, you tried to shoot her.”

“Wha—”

“That woman is mygirlfriend. You hurt her. Almost killed her. And I want to know why.” My molars grind to dust as I force down my anger. “Tell me.Now.”

Mavers looks desperately at Alec. “Are you going to let him?—”

Alec bares his teeth in a terrifying grin. “That woman? She’s my friend. So, yeah. I’ll let him do whatever he wants.”

“Well?” I ask, stepping closer to Mavers. “Way I see it, you have two options. Tell me the truth, and I turn you over to the police. I might even have a word with them, try to get some leniency with the charges. As a gesture of good faith. Or…” My voice dips dangerously. “You could disappear. It’ll never be tied to me. And then my girlfriend won’t have to worry about you again.”

A few seconds go by while Mavers stares at me, indecision warring in his eyes.

Then his shoulders sag. “Fuck. I knew I should never have taken the job. I should have just stuck to the same shit as usual. Drugs are safe. But…”

“But?” I ask.

“A buddy of mine told me about this thing called the dark web. How you could make all this money off it. So I checked it out. Found this site—” He stops, grimacing.

“Tell me.”

“I went on there. Found this ad looking for a hit on some lady in Vermont. Five K up front just to take the job. Then another forty-five once it’s done.”

Fury explodes in my chest, and I only just stop myself from pounding the shit out of him. Fifty K? To kill my Rory?

A low cough from Alec’s direction helps me refocus. “So what happened?” I ask Mavers.

“I took the job. This guy called me on a burner phone to make the arrangements. It sounded easy. The woman lived alone, out in the middle of nowhere. How the fuck was I supposed to guess she’d fight back like that? Or that she’d survive the first attack? She fucking cut me?—”

My hand clasps around his throat. “You tried to fucking kill her!”

A second later, I release him. “Finish.”

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