There were at least twenty men and women wearing suits surrounding the cabin. It was such an odd sight to Declan. For the last decade Well Water had been forgotten by most of the world, a desolate structure that was visited by him only for the occasional maintenance. Before that it had been his father visiting. Before that it had been a circus.
Now the abandoned cabin in the woods had too many people in and around it. People dressed for the boardroom with guns in hand like they were going to war.
“If it all goes sideways I’m doing everything in my power to get Remi out,” Declan said after he found a place to park among a cluster of inconspicuous cars and trucks. “That includes dying. And you’re going to let me if that means you can get out, too.”
No one rebuffed him, but Desmond tried to be reassuring.
“This will work. I know it will.”
No one backed him up but no one disagreed.
They’d had three hours to come up with a plan to save Remi and themselves without weapons, without help, and without knowing how many people would be at the cabin.
Their plan was at best risky; at worst it was downright idiotic.
And it was all they had.
A man came to the door as Declan got out. He was sneering. It was the one man he’d chased across Main Street. He ran a hand through his red hair, exposing the holster and the gun in it against his side.
“Howdy, Sheriff. If you’d be so kind to allow my associates to check you all for any knives, guns, bombs, et cetera, that would be mighty kind of you.” He was mocking them but Declan allowed the search. Just as his siblings did. The redhead seemed surprised that none of them had any weapons of any kind on them. No cell phones, either.
Those were back at the river, GPS on, and each holding video recordings for their families and law enforcement. They were hoping their plan would work but prepared if it didn’t. Watching his siblings make their videos for their kids and spouses tore Declan apart. They’d noticed and told him again this was their choice to make and they’d made it.
Tonight, for better or worse, one nightmare would end.
Redhead led them inside and cut right to the living room. Declan felt the tension coming off the triplets. This was the first time Madi and Desmond had been back to Well Water since they’d escaped. For Caleb it had been a few years, but that didn’t matter.
This place was their personal hell.
One that was filled to the brim with strangers waiting for them.
Among the crowd was the man in the suit. Still the fanciest in the group. He smiled when they stopped in front of him.
“You didn’t bring any weapons and you didn’t ask for any help. I don’t know if you aren’t that smart or if you all are just a bit too confident.”
“You gave us terms and we followed them,” Declan said. “I’d say that makes us, at least, respectful.”
The man in the suit nodded. He was pleased.
“It does make everything go smoothly when you follow the rules.”
Declan looked around the room. He knew where she probably was but still had to ask.
“Where’s Remi?”
The man’s smile faded. He became the ideal image of a businessman.
“She’s downstairs with the man of the hour.” He held up his hand to stop Declan from saying how much he didn’t like that. “She’s fine. We can go see her now.”
He nodded to the people around them. Most stayed but Redhead, a woman with a sneer and three others followed. They walked behind their group as Declan followed the man in the suit to the only place that was ever an option for this horrible meeting.
Declan turned to his siblings as they got to the top of the stairs to the basement. He lowered his voice.
“You’re not little kids anymore.”
Caleb nodded. Desmond and Madi grabbed hands and stood straighter.
Then the Nash children followed the man in the suit down into the room they wanted to go in least. Right up to the smiling face of a man Declan had never seen.
Yet the triplets had.
Madi made a guttural, primal growl.
Caleb balled his fists.
Desmond lowered his head but kept eye contact, jaw clenched.
Declan looked past the man at Remi.
Then he yelled.
Guns came out and up from the man in the suit, Redhead and the woman. Declan stopped in his tracks.
Remi was lying across one of the cots, blood visible across the side of her face.
“She’s not dead, not yet,” the man said. “She got a little too mouthy so I showed her what that gets you in my house. I hit her a little too hard, I suppose. She fell right over like a twig in the wind.”
Declan was absolutely seething. His chest was rising and falling in rage-fueled pants. He turned to the man in the suit.
“You said she was fine,” he roared.
The man in the suit shared a look with the other. He didn’t seem too happy, but he offered Declan no explanation or apology.
Then Declan was staring back at the man he was going to kill.
The triplets had tried their best to describe what their abductor looked like after they were rescued. Madi had talked about his eyes so dark they looked black and made you feel cold when they were on you. Brown hair like dry mud and messy like mud, too. Caleb had focused on his stature. He wasn’t too tall but was wide. Strong but slow. Not overweight but not rail thin. Average. Desmond, on the other hand, had gotten more emotional with his descriptions.
One had always stuck with Declan.
“He was quiet but looked like he wanted to break us just because he could,” eight-year-old Desmond had said. It was a statement that had held more weight than the others, considering that same man had badly broken his leg during the initial attack and then made him suffer with it for days.
Now, standing close enough to strangle him, Declan saw what young Desmond had seen.
The man wanted to break them. All of them.
And Declan was over it.
“What do you want?”
The man kept smiling.
“My name is William Gallagher,” he started. “And I tell you that to remind you that you won’t be leaving this cabin, so having my name does nothing for you. As for you, well, I’ll never forget you.” He looked past Declan’s shoulder and listed the triplets off as he looked at them. “Desmond, Madeline and Caleb. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been keeping tabs on you three. Late congratulations on your marriages and children. Your careers are also touching. Not what I would have picked had I had a choice, but it doesn’t really matter in the end, does it?”
Declan had to breathe in slowly through his nose and let out a breath through his mouth. It was the only way to keep from running at William.
He seemed to sense Declan’s struggle with his rage.
“Dean wanted me to take you. Did you know that?” William said. “But if Dean wanted a distraction by taking one of Michael Nash’s kids, boy howdy at the distraction taking three would be.” His smile twisted upside down. Anger flashed across his expression. “I had everything planned out. But what I hadn’t foreseen was how much heat taking you three would be. And after you escaped?” He shook his head, anger apparent on his face. “Dean decides not to pay me. Skips town. So what do I have to do? Go underground. Give up my life to hide as the entire country looks for my face. My scarred hand. Me. And all because I gave a damn about you dying.”
At this he looked at Desmond.
What was more famous than the abduction itself was how the triplets had escaped. After having his leg broken and untreated, by day three Desmond was in immense pain and in a bad way. Madi and Caleb knew that if they didn’t get him help soon he could die. So, in a last-ditch effort, they’d decided to have him play dead.
Up until this point William had only ever brought them food. But when they started screaming and crying, saying that Desmond had stopped breathing, he’d run in to check. The moment he was trying to find a pulse was the moment everything changed.
It didn’t matter who you asked, neither Madi, Caleb nor Desmond could remember exactly what happened next. The best they could describe it was that they’d simply synced up. Become a hive mind. They’d attacked William as one unit and gotten to the other side of the door to lock it. Together they’d run into the woods, bloody, broken and scarred.
When Caleb had brought the cops back to the cabin after they’d been found, William was gone.
“We couldn’t have done it had you not broken my leg in the first place,” Desmond shot back.
William let out a low, tense laugh.
“You don’t understand the danger you’re in, son. For years I missed out on the life I wanted, living in the shadows, waiting. So I decided to spend those years building something that could do what I’d been forced to do. All for the purpose of destroying everyone who forced me to abandon what I’d loved.”
“You started the Fixers,” Caleb said.
William nodded.
“And I used them to torment you all the last few years. Help those who despised you, who wanted to harm those you loved.” He shared a look with the man in the suit. It wasn’t a kind one. He didn’t explain it, either. “You might have prevailed each time but you also were waiting. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.” William extended his hands out wide. “Now it has.”
“Why now?” Madi asked, voice sharp.
“I wanted you to build your lives. Make careers. Fall in love. Create families. I was getting restless waiting for our dear sheriff to find someone. But then his truck broke down and, well, the mouthy one behind me came into the picture. That was enough for me to start.”
“So, Lydia, she’s a Fixer.” Declan said it because he already believed it to be true. “She used Jonah to get to Remi.”
William snorted.
“You want to know a fun thing about small towns? You get a happy coincidence once in a while. See, Lydia was brought in only to do whatever plan I saw fit. She was supposed to blend in first and build up some grace with the locals until I had that plan. And what better family to attach to than those who ran the Heartland Ranch? Childhood friends to the Nashes? It was a shock to us all when we realized that, not only were you and Miss Hudson no longer just friends, that she was pregnant with your child.” His grin was sickening. “Having Lydia and the others try to take the mother of a future Nash child, even though it didn’t work out the way I wanted? Well that was almost as fun as planting a note in a wall, knowing that just the mention of it would drive you mad. Watching you Nashes obsess has become a fun pastime of mine throughout the years. I think, when this is over, that’s what I’ll miss most.”
William took a small step forward. Not close enough that Declan could lunge at him but close enough that Declan’s muscles started tensing up, ready for anything. His mirth was gone. He had gotten to what he really wanted to say. “I want you all to know that your violent deaths will become a horror story every man, woman and child will know. A nighttime terror that will haunt your families, your loved ones, your friends, your coworkers. Strangers. I had to live in the shadows and you’ll never leave the spotlight. Not even in death.”
He turned to the man in the suit. He nodded, but neither man made a move. William looked at Declan as he added one last thing.
“Any last words before all of you meet horrible ends?”
Declan took a quick breath.
Then he turned to the man in the suit and made sure his words were absolutely sincere.
This was it.
“I want to hire you.”
The man in the suit raised his eyebrow. Redhead and the woman laughed. So did William. The man didn’t.
“Come again?”
Declan turned to face him completely, angling away from William. So did Madi, Caleb and Desmond.
“My father was a good man,” he started. “But when he couldn’t find who was behind the abduction, he became obsessed. Every day, every night. Weekends. He worked the case until it was all he did. Holidays, birthdays. He started to hate every special day that families are supposed to enjoy together. They were reminders that the years were going by and he was no closer to figuring it out. He pushed my mother away first, and then, when we all started to move on, he dug in so deep that he sacrificed himself to it. The obsession. Then he died, and even though I knew not to become him because I’d seen what it did, I still followed his example.” Declan motioned to the room around him. “I own this place. This hell pit. Because he did and he willed it to me. No explanation. No note. Just a deed and an unspoken direction.” That was something no one in his family knew. He could feel six baby blue eyes look in his direction. He kept on. “And I went into law enforcement and I started to obsess. I started walking that line between doing what I wanted and doing what he wanted.”
Declan glanced at William. He still looked smug.
“When William took the kids, he ended whatever chance we had at a normal life. That includes you.” This part was a gamble, but it was a theory they had kicked around before coming to Well Water.
Declan motioned to his hand. To the scar that matched William’s.
“You were right earlier. I don’t know much about you, but I do know you follow contracts. You never betray them. That’s your code. And since William is your father, I’m going to assume he doesn’t have a contract, does he?”
A pin could have dropped and they would have heard it.
The man in the suit didn’t dispute a word he’d said.
Which meant they had been right. The man in the suit wasn’t the boss, he was their abductor’s son.
“You want to hire me to kill my father?” he asked after a moment.
Declan shook his head.
“I want to hire you and the Fixers to get Remi, take her to the hospital and tell them she’s pregnant, and then do what you all do best. Disappear.” Declan looked around the room to the suits ready to mock such an outrageous idea. He pointed to William, who was looking less smug. “At his prime he was bested by three eight-year-olds. Then he spent most of his life plotting against them when he could have easily killed us time and time again. You’ve been around here. You know who we are. We’re fathers and mothers and husbands and wives. We’re law enforcement. We’re charitable and charming and kind. This town loves us. If you kill us? All because an old man’s pissed he messed up a job by not following orders in the first place? You’ll be hunted to the ground by our loved ones. And if they don’t find you, they’ll have kids that will grow up and hunt your kids down. The cycle will never end.”
Declan went back to the man in the suit.
“Let’s show our fathers we’re stronger than they ever were.”
William made a noise. A snort that clearly said he thought Declan was crazy.
But he wasn’t paying attention to the suits. Their expressions had turned thoughtful and their gazes had turned to the man in the suit.
He considered Declan. He considered his father. Then he looked at the scar on his hand.
That was when Declan knew.
“There’s money in the trunk of the car, where the spare tire is. I don’t know your going rate, but it should be enough.”
The man turned back to him. He nodded.
“Your contract has been accepted.”
“What!” William was livid. His son paid him no mind.
“We’ll take Miss Hudson to the hospital and let them know she’s pregnant. Then you won’t ever see us again.” He nodded to Redhead and the woman. They went to Remi and scooped her up. Declan wished it could be him, but the Nash siblings had already guessed that while the man in the suit might accept their contract, he wouldn’t go so far as to interfere with his dad.
The other suits seemed to agree and, just like that, the man in the suit became the real boss of the Fixers. He saw to Remi being taken to the stairs and only stopped at the door. He turned around and looked his father up and down. His last words before he left the room, however, were for them all.
“There’s a gun in the middle kitchen drawer. Good luck.”
The door shut and the sound of it locking became the background noise to a whirl of motion.
William was faster than Declan would ever give him credit for. He couldn’t grab him in time. None of them could though they tried.
Madi got to him just as he flung the drawer open. She grabbed at his face, lashing out with her nails. It tore at his skin, making him yell so loud it hurt Declan’s ears. Still he pulled the gun out and turned. Desmond gave his own battle cry as he hit the man in the gut with a devastating tackle. He, Madi and William slammed backward into the wall. The gun hit the ground and skidded away but William kept struggling.
Caleb joined the fray next with a punch that hit William’s face so hard it echoed.
Declan scooped up the gun. He aimed it at William but there was no reason to use it. William had gone slack from the hit even though Madi held one arm, Desmond held the other, and Caleb had his hands against his chest so he wouldn’t move an inch from where he was.
Despite everything, Declan smiled.
The Nash triplets had, once again, bested their abductor.
He wasn’t dead but, this time, there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was getting away.