Mitchell went to rub at his mouth. “I grabbed the girl because she’s his. You know he had a kid?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I knew.”

“You knew?!” Mitchell grabbed his son’s arm. “All that talk you had about making him suffer, and you knew he had a kid? I had to find out through that son of a bitch!” He jerked a finger back at Ridley.

“She’s just a kid, Dad,” Dale said quietly. He looked at her then. “It doesn’t matter what he did, not when it comes to her. She’s a little girl.”

“She’s his kid!”

Dale stepped between them, cutting off his father’s view of Haley. “She’s not. The woman who gave birth to that kid dumped him, took off, wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Hell, the little girl won’t even look at him. I bet he doesn’t even know her name. Come on, Dad. Don’t do this. Let’s get the girls out of here. That ditz over there, the little kid. Then we can figure out how to handle Cantrell.”

I never thought I’d be grateful to Dale Mitchell, but I was. I knew he wanted to save his father, not me, but I didn’t care. As long as Haley and Carly were safe, I’d take whatever came next.

“Fine.” Mitchell scowled. “But after that, we’re going to make him pay.”

Dale nodded and I wondered if he was finally going to cross that line from harassment into violence. I didn’t let myself think about it though.

I picked up Haley as Carly got to her feet. If it was the only chance I’d ever have to hold my daughter, I’d make sure I remembered it. I breathed in the scent of her hair – she smelled like bubble gum – and I fought the urge to cuddle her close, keeping the contact as impersonal as I could.

“Take her,” I said, keeping my voice brusque as I pushed her into Carly’s arms.

“I’m not leaving you.” Carly’s voice shook and I could see she was still unsteady, fighting off the effect of the drugs.

“You are.” I practically growled it. Then lower, I whispered, “Please. Get her safe.”

I chanced a glance up the hill, with my eyes only.

She swallowed, then managed a nod, and even a half-smile for me as she lowered Haley to the ground. “You have to walk, honey. I can’t carry you unless we both want to fall down.”

I didn’t think I’d ever loved her more than I did at that moment. And I didn’t dare tell her, either. Better Mitchell think Carly was just some crush or fling. He couldn’t know how much she meant to me.

“Shut the door.”

The cold, hard muzzle of the gun nudged hard against my ribs and I took my time closing the door, keeping my body between him and them, hoping to keep him from seeing even a single strand of blonde hair.

A split second before the door was aligned with the door jam, a hand slammed my face against the solid oak and I tasted blood. It took all my self-control not to spin around and try to beat the shit out of Mitchell.

“You got any idea how many times I’ve thought about getting my hands on you, boy?” Mitchell snarled in my ear. “How many times I’ve thought about beating you bloody? Tearing you apart, piece by piece, by piece?”

“Dad.”

“Shut up!” Mitchell’s voice was a bellow in my ear, one I had no problem hearing despite the roar of blood in my ears and the pounding that had taken up residence.

I grunted, or tried to, as he slammed the gun against the back of my neck. Pain shot up my skull and down my spine. I forced myself to think, to use my head instead of my fists.

“Those stupid bitches are gone now, right? That’s all you were...”

The gun wedged against the back of my neck eased and I sucked in air. The heavy weight of Mitchell’s body pinning me to the door fell away and I half-turned, half-staggered away, falling against the corner as I took in the scene in front of me. Blood splattered hot down my chest. My nose was probably broken again, but that was the least of my concerns.

Detective Dale Mitchell was holding a baby Glock on his dad.

Fuck me.

I spit some blood onto the floor, but didn’t say anything as I watched the scene play out in front of me.

“You need to put that thing down, son,” Mitchell said softly. “You know you ain’t going to use that on me.”

“Two civilians in here, Dad.” Dale shook his head. “And you had a kid in here, Dad. You kidnapped a little girl, for fuck’s sake. You think I can just let that slide?”

“Kid’s gone. It’s just us now. Civilians, right?” He snorted and threw a glance at Ridley. “You think that man there is some injured party here? He’s the one who helped me find that...”

Ridley looked away.

“He isn’t going to side with you here, Dad. He’s out.”

“I say when he’s out!” Mitchell spun, his eyes landing on me.

There I was, wearing nothing more than the damn boxer briefs I’d pulled on that morning, and the damn microphone they’d shoved in my ear, and I had a gun pointed at me. There wasn’t anybody in the world who had more reason to hate me than these three men, and two of them had guns. I wasn’t sure things could’ve gotten any worse.

But I shouldn’t have thought that.

Because things could always get worse.

Chapter 21

“He thinks I should just let you go,” Mitchell said. The gun in his hand had finally started to shake.

As I watched, he reached up and dashed his free hand across his eyes.

The old man was crying.

Stupid son of a bitch that I was, I almost felt sorry for him.

“Dad...”

“Don’t move!” Mitchell shouted, his voice cracking. The gun came back to me and he shouted, “Get over there. With them. You sorry son of a bitch. Get over there, where I can see all of you.”

I did what he said, keeping a wide distance. As I moved, I was absently aware of the fact that I was cold. The fire had died down, half-smothered by the Kevlar vest I’d had to throw in with the rest of my clothes. Not that it would matter much in a little while.

Mitchell wanted me dead, and I didn’t think Ridley was going to argue with that. For reasons I hadn’t quite yet worked out in my head, though, Detective Dale Mitchell seemed to have taken an opposing view.

“Where are his clothes, Dad?”

“Burned them.” Mitchell smiled, despite the tears that continued to track down his face. “The dumb-ass cops sent him in here with a wire, thought I wouldn’t check. My son’s a cop.” His lip curled as he said it and the way he spat the words my son made it clear just what he thought of that connection just then.

If Dale was bothered by it, he didn’t let it show. He just nodded and looked around. “This place is probably heated by the fireplace and a generator. It’s cold in here. You plan on letting him get hypothermia before you kill him or what? Let him get some clothes on.”

“I don’t care if he turns to ice in front of me,” Mitchell sneered.

“I do.” Dale glanced over at Ridley. “Get him a shirt, some pants.”

“Don’t,” Mitchell warned.

“Do it,” Dale snapped.

When his father rounded on him, Dale strode forward, his eyes blazing. “You going to shoot me because I don’t want a man freezing his ass off in front of me? Then do it. Go on! Do it!”

He was close enough now to grab the muzzle of his father’s gun.

For a second, I waited, motionless. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid to even blink.

Then Mitchell swore and lowered the gun, backing away. “How did I raise such a fucking pussy?” He turned his head and spat on the floor, the disgust coming from him in waves.

If he thought Dale putting himself in front of a loaded gun made his son a pussy, we had very different definitions of what that term meant.

A muscle pulsed in Dale’s cheek and he shot me a look. I couldn’t quite decipher it. If he hated me, fine. If he let his father shoot me right there, I would go to my grave thankful.

He’d gotten Haley out. He’d gotten Carly out. The two things in my world that really mattered and he’d taken care of them. I’d be indebted to him for the rest of my life, however long that ended up being.