Page 130 of Lethal Threat

Her voice drops to a soft whisper as she holds my gaze with hers. “I know. We do. Days worth of things to talk about.”

A loud thump on the windshield makes us both jerk our eyes toward the front of the truck.

“It’s your brother,” I growl as I gently pull back from her. “I want a minute with him. Then I’ll let you two talk. I’ll be close if you need me. And when we wrap up here, we’re going somewhere to be alone.”

She clings to my hand. “Alone sounds really good.”

I step from the SUV and walk right up to her brother making it known he’s got to go through me to get to his sister from now on.

“Cole.” He tips his head.

The man looks like hell. His eyes are hollow, with deep black smudges beneath them. The t-shirt he’s wearing hangs from the bones of his shoulders. He’s forty pounds lighter, at least, since the last time I saw him. For several seconds, we stand eye to eye as tension pulses between us.

“She’s ready to talk to you.”

He swallows roughly. “I need to say some things to you first.”

I should say some things too. But I’ve got one priority. Sierra.

My hackles rise from just looking at him. Thinking about that night at Sierra’s apartment still makes me want to break shit. Mainly, his face. And then, to add this disaster on top of that, I have half a mind to tell the bastard to nevercome near her again. But instead, I say, “I’ve got things to say, too.”

His eyes stay locked on me, his voice is rough as he speaks. “Thank you for calling the police that night. I was out of my head. Whatever they were giving me made me psychotic. It was all to manipulate me into doing their dirty work.”

I want to believe him. It’s really damned hard.

He shakes his head as his expression fills with sorrow. “I thought I was smoking pot. Literally. That’s all I was doing. It all started because the weed helped with my nightmares. But the undercover guy told me a few minutes ago that Hilton had laced it with B-zene so that it would have more effect on me.”

He makes a huffing sound and shoves his hands in the pockets of his dirty pants. “They were just feeding me all kinds of synthetic drugs to keep me in the game as their puppet.”

“Fucked up.”

His voice grows thick. “And that night I was at Sierra’s place, I was off the deep end. If you hadn’t come along—” Bryan looks away. “I don’t know what would have happened. I might have killed her...”

“That’s what terrified me.”

Tears well in his eyes. “Jesus. And that was just the beginning of the nightmare. Did Sierra tell you Evelyn died in the boating accident when they chased her?”

I can’t speak. I’m so mad and so sorry for this man all at once, I have no words.

He dashes angrily at the water on his lashes. “Evelyn and Sierra were looking for me. Evelyn knew that I was in trouble and just wanted to help. And I had done nothing buttreat her like dirt for the last year. But the bastards followed her and Sierra. They tried to kill them by making them crash. Well, Sierra survived and Evelyn didn’t. When they intercepted me later that day, they had her body in their boat.”

He clenches his fists and looks at the ground. “I’m gonna make sure they rot in hell for that.”

A growl rises in my chest. It’s hard to bite out my words. “That makes two of us, man.”

Bryan’s eyes raise back to me again. The man is broken. Inside and out. “I’d like to talk to Sierra, but I understand if you don’t want me to have anything to do with her after this.”

God. Can I be that mean to the guy? “I know you’ve been dealt a bad hand, but you’ve got a lot of work to earn my trust again.”

“Understood.” He extends his hand.

I look at his palm for several heartbeats. When I clasp it, I stare at him with my promise burning in my gaze. “Hurt her again and it’s your endgame. Got it?”

We shake without ever taking our eyes off each other.

I drop his hand and step back as I tip my head toward the vehicle. “She’s got a lot of questions for you.”

“I’ll do my best to make sure she gets what she wants. I’ll be fast. I know you want to get her out of here.”