Page 15 of Creed (Rock Hard Mountain Men #3)

“So, you’re the one whose been giving us so much trouble?” a voice said.

I could just see the vague outline of a person standing a few feet away. If not for the voice, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell if they were a man or a woman.

Rolling my eyes, I put on my most irritating smile. The one that used to make both teachers and bullies hate me as a child. It hadn’t been intentional when I was younger. According to Kayden, my “face just wasn’t built for smiling” so the expression always looked insincere on me.

Now, I used it to my advantage.

“You must be mistaken. I only arrived about a week ago.”

My vision finally cleared enough for me to see who I was talking to. The man had a clean-cut look, like a pastor, but there was just a little too much muscle under his tailored clothes. This was not a man who sat around all day preaching.

The man glared at me but didn’t come any closer. “Don’t try to be funny. Your friends may have started this, but you were there when several of our members were arrested.”

I pretended to think for a moment, which likely only pissed our captors off more, but it gave me a chance to cast a quick glance over at Kayden.

He was obviously afraid, but he was doing a good job keeping himself together.

His face was neutral, and only the stiff set of his shoulders and the way he bit his lip to silence himself gave away the fact that he was terrified.

“Oh, was that you?” I said, feigning nonchalance as I shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t realize. What was your name again? Something about souls, right? The Tired Souls? No, that’s not right. The Trained Souls?”

“Shut up!” the other man snapped. He took a step forward as if he meant to approach me, but then stopped and regained his place on the other side of the room.

That was when I realized the man wasn’t alone.

There were other people in the room behind me, that much I could tell even without seeing them, but there was someone else directly in front of me as well.

The second man sat at a small but elaborate desk, reminding me of the way that a king would sit on a throne while holding court.

He was very old, his sparse hair completely white, and the wrinkles on his face too numerous to count.

The way he sat there, not saying a word and barely moving, made it seem like he wasn’t paying attention, but his eyes were very active as he tracked the activity around the room.

The younger man shouting at me may pretend to be the one in charge of this little cult, but the older man was the real leader.

That’s who I needed to watch out for.

The man who’d shouted at me laid a hand on the back of the chair of the man sitting down. Just that little gesture was enough to calm him down, and he spoke to me in a much more level tone.

“Mister Landry. Let’s not play these games. We both know why you’re here.”

I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of giving him the answers he was looking for.

“We’re here because you kidnapped us.”

The younger man—I really wished they’d introduce themselves, so I’d have some names for them—squeezed the back of the older man’s chair. His knuckles turned white, like he was on the verge of losing control again, but he managed to keep himself calm.

“We’re here because your friends discovered the missing body of our late founder.

Generations ago, something important was stolen from him.

It was so important that he gave up his life trying to retrieve it.

The items your friends found with his body are likely the key to getting back what was stolen.

For that, we need your help. The locket and the key have already revealed their secrets, but the information stored in the journal continues to elude us.

You have skills that will help with that. ”

So, we’d reached the negotiation stage of our kidnapping. At least things were going better than the last time I’d been captured.

This time, everyone spoke the same language.

“I have no connection to you or the Milford sisters. The only reason I’m involved in this at all is that my friends and I were unlucky enough to buy a property that had a coffin buried in it. So, what’s in it for me if I help you?”

The younger man was clearly furious over my continued attitude, but it was the older man’s reaction that caught my interest. He’d clearly been paying attention to everything, but up until that moment he had given off a sense of indifference.

When I mentioned the Milford sisters, however, his expression shifted.

Just for a moment, the wrinkles of his face tightened and twisted into a look of absolute disgust.

Whatever the younger man was saying, I ignored him and turned my attention fully on the older man.

“You. What’s your name?”

The young man, and everyone else in the room stationed behind me, gasped as if I’d just spit in their face.

The older man, however, just laughed quietly.

“An observant boy, aren’t you.”

His voice was rough but flowing, like a river of sand.

“Your reaction is different from everyone else’s,” I explained. “This is personal for you. But these events happened a hundred and twenty-five years ago. For you to have a personal connection to those events, there’s only a few options.”

The man adjusted something just below the table, and a moment later, I could hear the whirr of a machinery. He glided out from behind the desk in an electric wheelchair.

The young man reached out as if to stop the man in the chair from getting any closer. “Father, wait, you don’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” the older man cut him off. “I’m not so old that I can’t even handle one conversation. Besides, Mister Landry here is a respectable man. He deserves to know the importance of what he’s found himself involved in.”

The wheels of his chair rolled slowly over the carpet, stopping just a few feet in front of me.

“My name is Chester Grieve. Angus Grieve, our founder, was my great-uncle. Obviously, I never knew him personally, but my grandfather did, and he told me about the man. This is not just a matter of our community’s history, but it is about my family’s legacy.”

“So, the Milford sisters stole something from your great-uncle.”

“Milford.” Chester Grieve spat the word between his teeth, like a cherry pit that he’d nearly swallowed.

“Even in death, all these years later, they continue to mock us. The name of those unfaithful harlots isn’t Milford.

It’s Grieve. They were our founder’s wives.

He gave them the honor of marrying them, and they upheld their vows by betraying him. ”

Before I could say anything in response, Kayden suddenly interrupted.

“Wait. All three of them?”

He’d been so quiet up until now that most people had forgotten he was even in the room, but now he had everyone’s attention. His shoulders hunched and he slouched where he knelt, clearly regretting that he’d spoken at all.

I wished he’d remained quiet, but I couldn’t blame him for his shock.

Determined to get everyone’s attention off of Kayden and back onto myself, I laughed with the harshest sound I could muster. “Your founder married a set of triplets? What? Was one not enough for him?”

Chester Grieve clenched his jaw so hard that his aged teeth were in danger of shattering to dust. “It is an honor to be chosen as the leader’s wife. It was their job to help lead our community, and they abandoned that duty.”

I cut my laughter off abruptly, and gave the old man the most disgusted look I could muster.

“I was told that those sisters were only teenagers when they were taken in by the Milford family. Your founder certainly had an... interesting taste in wives. Your little cult was founded by a pedophile and based on the number of times you’ve tried to kill the people I care about; I doubt you’re much better. So, why would I help you?”

The metallic click of a gun sounded behind us. Kayden flinched, and I felt the buzzing of familiar panic stabbing at the edges of my mind.

Before the gun-wielder stepped into view, Chester Grieve waved them away. The threat was clear even if they didn’t point the weapon at us directly.

“It’s simple. If you don’t help us, then we’ll kill your friend here.” He said the word “friend” with almost as much disgust as he said the name “Milford”. The cult had probably been following us for a while and must have seen me with Kayden. They knew how important he was to me.

I had a decision to make. I already knew I was going to give in to their demands, at least until I could figure out a way to escape. However, if I gave in too easily, it wouldn’t be believable, and I’d only make them more suspicious.

How much resistance was enough?

Remembering the number of gun fights and other life-threatening conflicts that Magnus and Brody had with these people, I guessed that their expectations of resistance were pretty high.

Squaring my shoulders, I hoped that Kayden would recognize my act for what it was.

“Do you think such a little threat is enough to control me? I’ve been threatened by enemies much more intimidating than you, from all over the world. You aren’t even the first ones to take me captive. I didn’t give in to their demands then, what makes you think I’d give into you so easily.”

Chester Grieve also wasn’t a man so easily intimidated. Despite sitting in a wheelchair, he held his ground.

“We’ve done our research on you, Creed Landry.

You’re an accomplished soldier, a talented pilot, and a determined survivalist. You’re also an honorable man.

This man here is important to you, and despite the stoic face you put on, the guilt of causing his death would eat away at you, and you know it. ”

The old man’s eyes had a slightly milky quality to their color, a sign of his advanced age, but his gaze was still sharp.

Every nerve in my body burned with the urge to lash out at him as I stared into his eyes.

“You’re right. I won’t deny that. But let me warn you, if you kill him, then there is nothing you can do, no torture on this earth, that will make me help you.”

Like two predators locked in a battle for the last piece of territory, we stared each other down in silence. I refused to flinch, even as the rest of the world turned gray and muted around me. My vision tunneled, until all I could see were those cold, cloudy eyes staring back at me.

Chester Grieve broke first and looked away.

“Take them somewhere to rest for a bit,” he instructed the others in the room. “Our guests have had a long journey, and Mister Landry here needs time to think over my proposal.”

Immediately, the black bags were shoved back over our heads, and we were hauled to our feet. More hands shoved at us, leading us out of the room to whatever prison they had planned for us.

Despite the rough manhandling, a sense of pride swelled up inside my chest.

This time, I’d won.