Page 7 of Breaking His Exile
River’s sister. Jesus Christ. Rainey was River Beckett’s sister.
He kept his hands on the wheel at ten and two and kept his expression locked down tight. She was watching him, and the last thing he needed was her reading him before he’d read her. He pulled air through his nose and let it out slowly. “I know him.”
“How?”
“He’s one of the men at Valor Ridge.”
“That’s—” She swallowed hard, an audible click. “That’s where I’m going. Can you take me to him?”
The road crested. Below, the valley opened black and vast, the highway a thin ribbon unspooling down the mountainside through the dark.
Headlights blocked the road ahead, a lightbar throwing red and blue flashes through the trees.
County cruiser.
Too early to be about the roadhouse. Ten, fifteen minutes since they’d left the bar, and county response was never that fast out here. A random patrol. A DUI check.
Or, with his luck, it was Sheriff Hank fucking Goodwin out hassling people.
He killed the headlights. “Hold on.”
He swung the wheel. The truck dropped off the road onto an old logging cut, undergrowth scraping both sides with a sound like fingernails on slate. Branches whipped the windshield. It pitched into a rut, and he fought it back, downshifting, the transmission groaning under it.
“You didn’t answer me,” she pointed out.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You’re not taking me to Valor Ridge, are you?”
“No.”
She released a long breath that hitched halfway through, and he glanced over in time to catch her wince.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, but even as she did, she pressed her hand to her ribs. “It’s an old injury. Just aggravated it.”
Judging by her face, she more than aggravated it.
After a long stretch of silence, she said, “Now you know my name, but you still haven’t told me yours.”
“Evander.”
She waited a beat. “Got a last name?”
“Cole.”
She nodded as if that made sense. Had River told her about him?
Probably.
River Beckett liked to talk. Guy never knew when to shut up.
“Well, Evander Cole,” she said. “You have no idea what you did back there, do you?”
He kept his gaze on the barely-there road. “No, but I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”
She was quiet long enough that he thought she wouldn’t. Then: “His name was Rux Granger. President of Sons of Sin Montana.”
