Hilly had made her choice, but it wasn’t one of the ones Dad had laid out for her. Not that he knew it yet.
There was a kind of giddy freedom in that, no matter the danger they were in. She’d been changed in the past few days, not because she’d found out her father wasn’t her own, but because she’d broken out of that stifling prison she hadn’t understood and seen the world around her.
It was big and dangerous and scary, but she’d survived. She’d been attacked over and over again and yet she was still running, still fighting. She didn’t need her father or even Cam next to her to stand on her own two feet.
From that moment Cam had shown up at her cabin, her life had changed. Opened up. No. That wasn’t true. It was the moment she’d decided to leave their clearing, to face the police, to get help.
Even though she’d chickened out, that had gotten the ball rolling. Her choice had changed her life. And for the rest of it, she was going to make the decisions, take the chances and help the people she trusted and loved.
She’d followed Dad away from the cabin in a dead run, and it appeared they hadn’t been detected by anyone. It pained her to leave Cam, but she needed Dad away from the danger. Cam had been right that the only person who could be after them at this point was really after her father. She needed to get him to safety.
Cam could hold his own for a while. She had to believe that. But that didn’t mean she’d desert him completely.
“Let’s take a rest,” Hilly said, feigning as much out-of-breath panting as her father was doing.
Even though she now knew the truth about their lack of genetic connections, in her thoughts and feelings he was still her father. She’d have to deal with the complications of that later.
“Shouldn’t stop,” Dad gasped. “Could be after us.”
“I don’t think they are. Cam’s keeping them busy. Sit. They’ll definitely catch you if you keel over and have a heart attack.”
Dad glared, but he didn’t argue any further. He found a rock to perch himself on. “I may not be your father by blood, but I’ve been your father for twenty years and I’ve always called the shots.”
“Well, that all changed when you abandoned me and I realized how helpless you’d left me.”
“Helpless! You knew how to hunt and cook and protect yourself. What more would you need?” Dad blustered. The defensiveness he always relied upon when they disagreed was different now—whether because of the position they were in or because she’d simply opened her eyes in this manner, too.
His defensiveness didn’t come from a place of rightness. It came from a place of fear. Fear she was right.
Which she was, and she was done stuffing down her own truth for his comfort. “I could have used the knowledge of where I could go to get supplies,” she shot back. “Any clue as to what the outside world was like so I could navigate it. You left me helpless and scared. I was worried sick about you.”
“You should have trusted me,” he grumbled.
She threw her hands up in the air. It wasn’t the time for this argument, but he made her so angry the words just poured out. “I thought you were dead or hurt. I knew I had to find you and save you, but you left me helpless. I had to find someone to help me because I had none of the skills necessary to save you if it was even possible.”
“You shouldn’t have ever gone to the outside. And you shouldn’t even think about contacting that stranger again. You can’t trust—”
“I trust Cam with my life. And yours,” she said vehemently, and it was the reminder of Cam that made her rein in her temper and focus on getting back to him. He probably didn’t need her help, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t offer it.
“I taught you better—”
“We don’t have time for this. I need to know everything you know.” Then she’d run back to Cam armed with the information she needed.
“That isn’t necessary.”
She looked into her father’s eyes—the man she’d believed to be her father for twenty years. He had protected her, and she realized he must have sacrificed for that protection. “Dad, you have to tell me. If you can’t tell me, then these past twenty years were for nothing.”
He looked away, stubbornly clenching his jaw together.
A tear escaped her eye, but she brushed it away. She’d run back to Cam now. Help him in whatever way she could, even if it wasn’t with information.
“They’d found out about you,” Dad said, his voice low and pained, causing her to pause her escape plans. “I don’t know how. I thought I was just going to our annual meeting, but they tied me up and knocked me around and demanded to know where you were. I wouldn’t tell them, but I wasn’t the only one looking for you.”
“What?”
“Your biological family. Your body was never found back then, and some of them were sure that meant you were still alive.”
“Why were you supposed to kill me?” she managed to whisper.
“Revenge.” He sighed, rubbing a hand over his chest and making her worry about her heart-attack crack. “Your biological father led the ATF raid that ended with twenty of our men killed. We couldn’t let that stand.”
Her body went cold. “You were going to kill an innocent baby for revenge?”
“You don’t know what your father took from us,” Dad snapped, eyes blazing with fury time had certainly not calmed. “Twenty men and women. All ours. All just trying to make the world a better place.”
“Yes, I felt firsthand how your group of associates is trying to make the world a better place.”
Dad shook his head. “You can’t understand. You won’t.”
“Why...” She swallowed. “Why didn’t you kill me then?”
Dad looked down at his hands. “You were just a tiny thing,” he said, all that fury draining out of him. “We’d caused a car accident. It was supposed to be one of the boys, but only you and your father were in the car. I took you out of the car seat and you smiled at me.”
“My...father?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a bad accident. We didn’t want him dead. The point had been to kill one of his children so he’d understand what he’d done. So he’d pay for what he’d done. But part of the guardrail he hit broke off and killed him instantly.”
“Killed him,” Hilly echoed.
“It seemed silly to kill you, too. The man we wanted revenge on was dead. But my superiors still wanted you dead and I just... I couldn’t. I made up a story about being made by the cops so I had to go hide out in Idaho for a while, but after a year they wanted me back in the fold. When we lived in Idaho, I left you with a neighbor who just thought I was a hapless single father. When you were old enough to be on your own, we moved to the cabin. I knew I could keep you safe and out of sight there and no one would come snooping for you—your family or the Protectors. And it worked. All these years it worked.”
All these years. Her life had been a lie all these years. She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, but Cam was out there protecting her and her... No, she wasn’t sure she could think of this man as her father anymore. He’d killed a man, accidentally or not, out of revenge. Yes, he’d saved her, but...not really.
“So, who burned down the cabin?” she asked through her tight throat. “You said it wasn’t the Protectors.”
“Your brother. Before you cast stones on our revenge, you might consider your brother has been trying to enact some for years.”
“Brother.” She had a brother. Looking for her. Wanting to avenge their father’s wrongful death. Hilly had to force herself to breathe. So much anger and violence she was in the middle of and she couldn’t even wrap her mind around it.
“He’s after me. Has been for a few years now. He wasn’t close until the past few months, though.”
“Is that who’s there? My brother is back at the cabin with Cam?”
“Yes, but—”
Two people—both without the full story—facing off in an isolated cabin. It was a recipe for disaster, and she couldn’t let it happen.
* * *
CAM HAD SURVIVED a lot of tight spots in his day, but a knife to the throat was a new one. Especially while a brotherly yelling match went on around him, with Free’s incessant barking and clawing from behind the bedroom door seemingly unnoticed by the bickering siblings.
Cam could feel the slow roll of blood down his neck before it soaked into the collar of his shirt. Nothing fatal, but not particularly comfortable when the blade was still settled there against his skin.
“Ethan,” Zach said, sounding tired. “I can’t get you out of this if you don’t stop. Here and now.” He was calm, even if they were arguing, but there was a kind of resigned finality to the way he spoke with his brother that had Cam reconsidering risking a deeper cut with a well-timed elbow or punch.
“Get me out of it,” the brother yelled, right in Cam’s ear. “Get me out of it? When will you understand there is no out? There’s only revenge.”
“Then what?” Zach demanded, temper straining. “What happens after revenge? You rot in jail.”
“Perhaps you two could have this conversation without a knife pressed to my throat?” Cam offered, not thinking the brother would actually release him. Still, it was worth a shot to remind the two he was still here and in the middle of whatever thing they were arguing about.
“He doesn’t know anything, Ethan. Let the man go.”
Cam winced as the knife only settled deeper into the cut.
“He liberated James before I could,” Ethan shot back, tightening his hold. “He knows something.”
“Who the hell do you think is with James? Can’t you see who he’s really protecting?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan said stubbornly.
Cam considered his angles. Drop to the floor and risk the knife cutting vital organs. A jerk to the right and he risked being stabbed just about anywhere. If he thought the man was dead set on killing him, those two moves would be preferable, but Cam still had hope this ended with Ethan letting him go of his own accord. Whatever they were arguing about, whatever Ethan thought, Cam figured it was clear Ethan needed some psychiatric help.
“If this is revenge, how does she not matter?” Zach asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“It’s revenge for Dad. She...” Ethan trailed off, his grip on Cam loosening. “Revenge for Dad is the important thing.”
Cam tried to piece that together. Hilly was the she, but Cam couldn’t figure out how on earth she fit into plans of revenge or these two disparate brothers.
“Mom won’t think so,” Zach said quietly.
“She should!” Ethan shot back, the volume of Ethan’s voice in Cam’s ear making him flinch and then hiss out a breath as the knife cut more skin.
He was done. Risking further damage, Cam feigned a cough and then used Ethan’s slight pull away as the opportunity to strike an elbow to Ethan’s neck. It didn’t dislodge the knife from his hand, but it did give Cam the space of seconds to escape the hold without making his cut too much worse.
But Ethan immediately lunged, tackling him at an awkward side angle. Cam saw the flash of the knife and managed to roll away from the first downward strike, but Ethan was on top of him quickly.
Cam grabbed his wrists, holding the sharp point of the knife away, but Ethan being on top gave him the better angle with which to force the blade down. Cam tried to kick or struggle, but most of his strength was focused on holding off the blade.
Cam took a chance at looking around the room, trying to figure out where the hell Zach was, but then he saw him. At the door, trying to push Hilly back out.
Straining to hold off the increasing force of Ethan’s push, Cam gritted his teeth. “Run, Hilly,” he ordered.
He couldn’t hear what they were saying, or see if Hilly listened to him or Zach got her out of here. The knife was inching closer and closer to the vulnerable flesh of his neck. Ethan’s eyes glittered with malice and hate.
Then Hilly appeared in his vision with Zach’s rifle in her hand. She skittered behind Ethan and shoved the barrel into his back. Her eyes were wild and her breath was coming in pants. “Get off of him, now,” she ordered.
Ethan looked down at Cam. Everything in his gaze was cold, dead almost. It gave Cam a full-body chill. For a second, he truly believed he would make Hilly take the shot.
“I’m your sister,” Hilly said breathlessly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t stop this right now.”
After a moment of continued struggle, Ethan began to ease off. He didn’t let go of the knife, but he began to move it away from Cam’s throat as he slid into a crouch. Cam kept a hold on Ethan’s wrists anyway. He wasn’t about to believe even with a gun on him Ethan would give up easily.
Cam surreptitiously tried to move his legs so he could keep Ethan from making any sudden moves, but that only made Ethan laugh. In the midst of that laughter that seemed to startle everyone, he twisted and grabbed the barrel of the weapon, jerking it out of Hilly’s grasp.
Cam moved to his feet, but he ended up only getting into a sitting position before he broke Hilly’s fall. She crashed into him hard, and he fell backward a little, but he quickly maneuvered to position himself between Hilly and Ethan.
Ethan stood there, Zach’s rifle secure in his hands, pointing it right at Cam. Hilly was struggling behind him, but Cam wasn’t about to let her in front of him.
“Ethan,” Zach said, breathless horror in his voice. “You’re not going to shoot your own siblings.”
Zach moved, but Ethan trained the sight right on Zach’s chest, making Zach freeze.
Ethan jabbed the gun toward him and then Cam. “I could kill all three of you and frame James. His prints are in here. He could finally pay for what he did to my father.”
“Please,” Hilly whispered, getting to her feet. “Don’t make this worse.”
“It’s already worse!” Ethan screamed.
Cam jumped to his feet. Without having to say anything, Zach inched closer so they created a barricade between Hilly and Ethan. Ethan ordered them to stop, but Cam wouldn’t. “I won’t let you kill your own sister, Ethan. Not if I can help it.”
“You can’t,” Ethan said, the gun trained on Cam. He put his finger on the trigger and Cam sucked in a breath.
Hilly pushed at him and Zach, but Cam would be damned if he moved. He’d take a bullet for her ten times over. He’d tackle Ethan before he shot, then Zach would have a chance of getting Hilly out of here.
But another voice joined Hilly’s protests. There were footsteps from behind them, then James came into view. He looked grim and determined, red-faced and panting, but calm nevertheless.
“You want to kill someone, you kill the man you’re really after,” James said gruffly.
Ethan’s gaze sharpened, and the gun’s barrel moved with swift accuracy to James’s chest.
Cam didn’t think, didn’t even breathe. He lunged.