Page 4 of Malice

Outside, a distant, mundane sound can be heard, a car door shutting. It’s tiny yet disrupts everything.

Evan’s head snaps toward the barn wall. One second. Two.

Morgan’s fingers wrap around mine. Her eyes lock onto mine, giving a purposeful nod.

I wait, counting heartbeats. One, two. I see the instant his eyes begin to swing back and all thoughts drop away.

Morgan reacts.

The plastic edge digs into the thin skin between his thumb and forefinger, and I lean my weight into it until I feel a wet pop under the plastic—a sound I’ve never heard a person make before.

His arm jerks up, dragging the gun with it. The shot booms through the space, a crack squeezing the air. My ears are ringing, and suddenly chaos erupts.

Morgan leaps forward. Evan bounces back faster than I thought possible. His fist connects with her face before I fully register the swing—a flat, wet crack that turns my stomach.

She staggers back, hand on her mouth, and when she pulls it away, there’s blood on her lip.

“Run!”

I’m already moving. My legs tingle with numbness, and my balance is off, but adrenaline cuts through the last foggy traces of the drug. I lurch toward the barn doors, hands outstretched to catch me if I fall.

My fingers brush something cold and heavy on the floor—a chunk of rusted metal, part of an old tractor engine. Without thinking, I grip it and throw it with everything I have left. It isn’t much, but it’s enough.

It hits Evan in the shoulder, spinning him sideways as he lets out a noise that’s satisfying in a way I can’t afford to think about right now.

Morgan dives, her fingers brushing the gun that slid across the floor. I see her fingertips graze the metal, but then Evan’s boot sends it clattering into darkness. His hand grips her throat before she can catch her breath.

The cold barrel presses against the back of her skull.

I freeze.

I’m stuck in the doorway, chest heaving, chilly air swirling around me. I lock eyes on Morgan. Her jaw is firm, gaze steady, blood bright at the corner of her mouth, and I can’t move.

“Don’t move,” Evan says, his voice frighteningly calm with that dreadful, trembling quiet. “Or I’ll blow her brains out.”

The barn holds its breath. The distant rumble shifts into something closer, a pack of engines approaching, the noise swelling through walls and floor and vibrating up through my feet. Light slices through the gaps in the boards, headlights sweeping, and in one dizzying moment, the barn flashes between shadow, pale gold, then shadow again.

Evan’s grip clamps tighter, the tendons in his hand standing out like cords.

“Who’d you call?” he says into Morgan’s hair, his voice low and dangerous.

“I didn’t.” Her voice holds steady, even with his hand at her throat. “My phone’s back at the restaurant.”

Outside, the engines settle into a low growl. Doors slam open. Boots crunch on frozen ground.

And then my father’s voice cuts through it all, calm yet commanding, carrying the kind of authority that never has to shout to be heard. “Evan. Let her go.”

My heart dances, skips a beat, finds a new rhythm. The doorway fills with silhouettes. Trenton, familiar and solid, then my father. His presence twists something in my chest I can’t handle right now. Carter steps in beside him, with Matthew and Kane flanking their sides. More figures pour in, flashlights slicing through the barn doors and between the boards, zeroing in on Evan like a net about to snap shut. Morgan’s father, Isaac, is right behind them.

The light hits Evan’s face. He seems smaller in it. Or I just need him to look that way. “We’re not here to negotiate,” my father says. “You have something that’s ours.”

Evan’s arm tenses, and now I can see the shake in it, not fear, exactly, but close enough. It’s the tremble of a man crunching numbers and hating all the results.

“You’ll shoot me?” His voice has taken on an odd edge. “You’d hit her first.”

Trenton steps up, the gun steady in his hand, aimed with the cool certainty of someone who doesn’t need to flaunt the threat. “Not if you let her go.”

A beat. Two.