Page 109 of Breaking His Exile

She hoped she had time.

She looked at Creed.

He hadn’t moved from the motorcycle. His arms were still crossed, his hair still fallen across his face, but his posture had changed. Subtle. The set of his shoulders, the angle of his head. He was listening. He’d heard every word between her and Gemma, every word between her and Mal, and he wasn’t liking any of it.

He was Mal’s tool, but he wasn’t Mal’s believer. Maybe she could use that.

“Boone lived,” she said to him.

Creed’s eyes moved to her. He didn’t speak. But he didn’t look away.

“Clean through-and-through in the shoulder. He’s already trying to get out of bed. You could have killed him. You didn’t. You could have killed Evander after you knocked him out. You didn’t.”

“Rainey,” Mal said. Warning in his voice. He’d heard.

She ignored him. She had Creed’s attention, and she wasn’t giving it up.

“You’re not one of them, Creed. I see it. You’re playing a part, but you’re not committed to it.”

Creed’s jaw tightened.

“You can still do the right thing,” she continued. “The hard thing. This isn’t over for you until you decide it is. You walk away from this, you help me get out of here, and you’re not what they say you are. You’re not irredeemable. You just made bad choices, and you can make different ones.”

“Shut up,” Gemma said. She moved toward Rainey, hand raised, and Rainey braced for the blow.

“Gemma.” Mal’s voice stopped her. He didn’t raise it. He didn’t need to. “Let her talk. She’s entertaining. It doesn’t change anything.”

But it did. Rainey saw it in Creed’s face, the way his gaze had shifted from her to Mal and back, calculating. He was listening. He was weighing. He was closer to the edge than he’d been five minutes ago.

A truck appeared on the road below them, and Mal clapped his hands together. “Finally.”

The truck was black with the VR logo on the side. Ranch truck. It slowed as it approached the turnout, gravel crunching under tires, and stopped thirty yards out.

For a moment, nothing happened. The engine ticked. The exhaust plumed white in the cold air.

Then the driver’s door opened.

Evander stepped out.

Rainey’s breath caught.

He’d come alone. He’d actually come alone, walking into this mess with nothing but his hands empty at his sides, because Mal had demanded it and because somewhere in the twisted logic Evander lived by, trading himself for her was the only equation that made sense.

You fucking idiot, she thought. I love you, you fucking idiot.

thirty-one

Thirty yards of open gravel between him and the SUV.

Evander walked it with his hands at his sides, fingers spread, palms forward. The gravel crunched under his boots with each step, loud in the morning quiet, and he let it be loud because he wanted Mal focused on him, unarmed, alone.

The power lines overhead hummed in a low, constant drone. The sky had brightened to a flat, featureless gray, the sun hidden by a thick layer of clouds. No wind. No sound except the gravel and the hum and the distant, almost imperceptible whisper of pine branches somewhere behind him, where men he trusted were moving through timber without making noise.

He counted the threats.

Malachi Granger walked toward him, smirking like he’d already won. Gemma hovered behind him, her blonde hair pulled back, a pistol in her right hand held low against her thigh. She kept glancing at Mal, then at Evander, then back at Mal. Nervous energy. Not trained for this part.

Creed leaned against his motorcycle twenty feet to the left, arms crossed, rifle slung across his back. He watched the ridge, not the road. His hair hung across his face, and his jaw was set. A man waiting for something to shift.