Page 21 of Breaking His Exile
“You walk, and you leave a trail a child could follow. Cracked ribs, no food, no water beyond what you can carry.” He looked up from the map, his dark eyes holding hers. “How long do you think it would take the Sons of Sin to find you once you’re on open ground?”
She didn’t have an answer. She wasn’t sure she wanted one.
He straightened and stepped back from the table. “I’m not keeping you prisoner. You can leave whenever you want. But if you walk out of this cabin without a plan, you’ll end up dead.”
She looked down at the map, at the tiny black dots marking springs and creeks, the red lines of roads, the blue of water snaking through the valleys. It was a different language, one she couldn’t read the way he could. But she could read the isolation. The distance. The way every route out of this place led straight into the open.
He was right.
She hated that he was right.
“What about a radio?” She looked up, her jaw set. “If I’m staying, I want a way to call for help.”
“There’s a hand-crank solar radio in the cabinet. No signal here, but take it to the ridge above us, and it picks up some AM/FM stations, the emergency band, and the local sheriff’s channel. If something happens to me, you use it.”
“If something happens to you,” she repeated.
“The Sons of Sin will be gunning for me. If they find this place, they won’t be coming for conversation.”
She thought about Rux, the way he’d looked down at his own blood as if it had betrayed him. She thought about Hobbs, standing at the door with his hand inside his jacket, watching. They’d come for her and Evander was willing to put himself between her and them.
She sat down, and only once she was seated did she realize how much she needed to. The chair scraped against the floor, and the sound was loud in the small room.
“Fine.” She pressed her hands flat on the tabletop. “We do this your way. But I have conditions.”
His lip twitched close to something that might have been a smile. “I’m not surprised. Go on.”
“I keep a knife.”
“You know how to use it?”
She met his eyes. “I’ve been protecting myself since I was sixteen. I know how to use it and a gun.”
He nodded. “You get a knife, not a gun.”
“I get a radio. And I get to keep it with me, not in some cabinet where I have to ask permission.”
“There’s only one. We share it, but you can hold onto it.”
“And you warn me before you leave. No disappearing without a word, leaving me to fend for myself up here.”
The faintest pause. Then, “Agreed.”
“We reassess every forty-eight hours.” She held his gaze. “If there’s a way to get me to my brother without leading the club to his door, you get me there. No arguments. No ‘it’s too dangerous.’ You take me to River.”
He was quiet for a long second that stretched into another, and the only sound was Tilly’s breathing from her spot by the woodstove and the faint creak of the cabin settling. Then he nodded again, slower this time, and his eyes held hers with an intensity that made her want to look away.
“Forty-eight hours,” he repeated. “If I can find a way to get word to Walker without tipping our hand, I’ll take you to the ranch myself.”
She exhaled. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoed.
Tilly stood, padded over to the table, and bumped her broad head against Rainey’s knee. She reached down and buried her fingers in the thick fur at the dog’s neck. Tilly leaned into the touch, and Evander watched them both with something unreadable in his face.
He straightened away from the map. “You need breakfast.”
She watched his back as he cooked. He’d agreed to all of her conditions, and now he was taking care of her again, making her food. That should loosen the tight ball of nerves in the pit of her stomach, but it didn’t.
