Page 16 of Breaking His Exile

“Marshal,” Walker said and held out a hand. “How can we help you?”

Brandt shifted a manila folder under his arm to accept the handshake, and didn’t waste time with greetings. “We have a situation.”

Puta madre.

Sentences that started with we have a situation never ended with and it’s gonna be fine.

X dropped the hey bale and drifted closer to the group. If there was a new threat to Nessie or anyone else in his adopted family, he wanted to know.

Boone and River also stopped what they were doing and followed.

Walker nodded toward the house. “Let’s go inside.”

The living room and kitchen had been a hive of wedding chaos an hour ago. Now it felt like a tomb. Gemma cleared the kitchen table of mason jars and seating charts, and she stood in the corner with her arm around River, watching. Everyone else crowded in.

Brandt set a manila folder on the table and opened it. Inside was a grainy, black-and-white photograph, clearly pulled from a security camera. X leaned in. The image showed a parking lot at night, a white two-tone truck that had to be at least forty years old, and two figures running toward it—a woman with a guitar case, and a man with long dark hair and a beard. A huge black dog sat at the man’s feet.

“What the fuck?” River surged forward and snapped it up. “That’s Rainey.”

“Yes,” Brandt said. “This was taken last night, approximately 2300 hours. The Dead Marshall, forty miles northwest of Solace.”

“Last night—” River’s voice came out wrong, stripped of all the joy that had been in fifteen minutes ago. He braced both hands on the table edge. “She was here? Forty miles from here, and I had no idea⁠—”

X took the photo from River’s hand and squinted at it. “Is that… Cole?”

Brandt placed a second printout on the table. A BOLO with Evander Cole’s name in bold, along with his truck’s description and his plates. “At approximately 2245, there was an altercation. A man was killed. John ‘Rux’ Granger, president of the Sons of Sin California chapter.”

“No mames?” X blurted.

“Jesus,” Boone said softly at the same time.

“Cole was identified as the assailant. According to witness statements, he attacked Granger without provocation, stabbed him with Granger’s own knife, and forcibly removed a female witness—your sister—from the premises.” Brandt’s gaze stayed on River’s face. “Every person inside that bar gave the same account.”

“Bullshit,” Walker said. “Absolute bullshit. Evander doesn’t do anything without a reason. And he sure as hell doesn’t kidnap women.”

“Regardless of the truth, that is the story being told.” Brandt tapped the BOLO. “This went to every agency in the state within two hours. Cole’s wanted for murder and kidnapping. Your sister’s listed as a victim.”

River’s hands curled into fists on the table. The tendons stood out, the knuckles went white. The jokes were gone. The motion was gone. What was left was raw, and it scared the shit out of X to see it.

“My sister is not a victim,” River said.

“We don’t know anything for sure yet. Rainey’s truck was found three miles from the bar,” Brandt went on. “Out of gas. Her phone, wallet, backpack, clothes. Her guitar was missing—whatever happened, she carried it with her.”

River made a sound then, low and broken, and X felt it in his own chest. He set down the photo and put a steadying hand on his best friend’s back. “Easy, ese.”

“Traffic footage shows Cole’s truck heading east into the mountains,” Brandt said. “Not west toward Valor Ridge. He took her deeper into the backcountry, not toward help.”

“Why?” River’s voice cracked. “Where the fuck is he taking her?”

“We were hoping one of you would have some insight, since Cole was a resident here.”

“For only two days, eight years ago.” Boone uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wood floor. “He’d just gotten out of prison—court-martialed, served five years for disobeying a direct order that got his entire team killed. Walker offered him a place here. He showed up, stayed two nights, and then he was gone. I couldn’t convince him to stay.”

“Where did he go when he left here?” Brandt asked.

“He bought property at the edge of Valor Ridge land,” Walker answered. “A cabin, off-grid, up in the mountains. It flooded this spring—the creek jumped its banks and took out half the foundation. He stayed in a cabin here at the ranch for a couple weeks while he rebuilt, but we didn’t see much of him even then. He hasn’t been back since. That was months ago.”

“Does anyone know where he is now?” Brandt asked.