Make Them Pay

by Allison Brennan

  “You think Dad would have wanted you to kidnap Sean’s fiancée and leave her as bait for a drug cartel?” Kane couldn’t have this conversation. Time was against him, and Liam was flat out crazy or obsessed. Both. “Sean and Jack are in danger. Lucy is being held by a ruthless bitch who will not stop until every Kincaid and Rogan is dead. If you think you’re getting out of this with a slap on the wrist, you’re insane. Dammit, Eden! What the hell were you thinking?”

  Kane prided himself on controlling his inner rage. It was with him always, but locked deep inside. It’s why he was a good soldier, a good leader, why he had solid instincts and had been able to get out of many dangerous situations. But for the first time, he felt himself losing his control. His family—his brother and sister—stood here in front of him and tried to justify their bad behavior. They tried to explain away kidnapping Lucy, putting her in danger. Where was their compassion? Their guilt? Why couldn’t they see that this treasure hunt had corrupted them?

  “Liam—we’ll come back for it,” Eden said. “Kane has no legal authority over us. Neither does Noah. He’s a US agent with no authority to bring us back to the States.”

  “I’m not here as a federal agent,” Noah said.

  Kane noticed that Noah was inching closer to Liam. Against his training and instincts, Kane holstered his own gun. He had to talk his brother out of this insanity. Kane didn’t recognize this man. When had he lost it? When Kane disowned him? During the decades of searching for this treasure?

  Liam said, “Eden and I are going back to the valley. Do not follow us.”

  Kane rushed him. He hit Liam full force in the chest and he went down. He hit him once in the jaw to keep him down. The statue Liam had been clutching with such intensity fell to the ground and hit a rock. Its head broke off.

  Kane jumped up before he seriously hurt his brother. “This is over, Liam.”

  Liam stared at the statue. “For two hundred years that statue was preserved, and after ten minutes in your presence it’s damaged. Like everything in your life!”

  Liam slowly stood up.

  “Stay down,” Kane ordered.

  Liam shook his head, and that’s when Kane noticed the gun in his hand. The sight of Liam standing in the rain with a gun surprised Kane. If it were any other person in any other time Kane would have shot him in the head. Kane was only feet from him. But this was his brother.

  You could draw and fire before Liam knew what hit him.

  Kane didn’t want to kill his brother. Even after everything that had happened, Kane didn’t want to kill Liam.

  “No, Liam, don’t!” Eden cried. “Don’t hurt him, Kane!”

  “Rogan!” Noah ordered. “Put the gun down.”

  Liam stared at Kane. “I hate you!”

  Kane saw the hate. He’d helped create it. He’d created Liam by bringing him into the business, training him, and then destroying him by disowning him. He had no idea the bonds were part of this damn treasure hunt. All Kane saw was Liam working for the Russian mob, the bad guys. Kane never saw this obsession. Liam justified everything he’d done as a necessity for a greater cause, a cause given to him by his father months before he died. Kane couldn’t explain it, he couldn’t tell Liam that he was wrong. He wouldn’t see it.

  “Liam, let’s go,” Eden said.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Noah said. “Stand down, Liam.”

  “Stay out of this, Noah!” Eden screamed.

  “I’m sorry,” Kane said, his eyes on Liam’s eyes. Kane wasn’t a talker. He was a man of action. But right now he had to find the words. “If you had told me the truth from the beginning, we could have discussed it.”

  “Bullshit! You don’t discuss anything. You give orders. You expect them to be followed. I’m not a soldier, Kane.”

  “I am sorry. You are right—I am a soldier. I give orders. I expect them to be followed. It’s all I know. But I’m just one person in this family. Do you think Duke and I see eye to eye on everything? Or JT?”

  “JT,” Liam spit out. “Mom and Dad took him into the house and you treated him more like your flesh and blood than me.”

  “You’ve twisted everything, Liam!” Kane raised his voice to be heard. The winds had increased as the rain fell harder.

  “Eden and I are leaving.” He looked at Dante. “Are you coming?”

  From where he sat on the ground, Dante shook his head. “Gabriella is my family. If you were thinking straight, you’d help save her and Lucy.”

  “It’s not my battle.” He stepped backward. Eden started walking toward Liam.

  Kane had to make a judgment call. He couldn’t let them go. But would Liam shoot him? Yesterday Kane would have said no.

  Today he wasn’t certain.

  Going back into those mountains during a storm was dangerous. And they had to answer for their crimes.

  Kane rushed Liam.

  Liam pressed the trigger, once, twice.

  A burning pain in Kane’s chest had him on his knees. Another pain in his arm hurt worse.

  Then he heard a third gunshot but didn’t feel the corresponding pain.

  Eden screamed. Her anguish echoed in the wet night.

  Kane sat up. His chest hurt, but he had on a Kevlar vest. Liam’s 9mm couldn’t penetrate it, just hurt enough to send him to the ground. His arm burned, but it was a glancing wound.

  Liam lay in the dirt.

  Noah rushed over and kicked away his gun. Eden punched Noah in the chest, but in two strides Nate had her restrained.

  “Let me go!” Eden screamed. Nate held her tight.

  Kane and Noah knelt by Liam. “I’m sorry,” Noah whispered.

  “You did what you had to do,” Kane said. He tore open Liam’s shirt. He’d been shot in the upper right shoulder and was losing a lot of blood. Kane immediately put pressure on the wound. Liam breathed erratically.

  “Hang on, Liam,” Kane said. “Dammit, this isn’t ending like this.”

  “No, you bastards!” Eden cried.

  “We need to get him to a hospital,” Noah said. “I can fly him to the border. Three hours in this weather, if I punch it.”

  “It’ll take twenty minutes to get him back to the truck.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  Liam groaned, “Eden.”

  Noah glanced at Nate and nodded. Nate let Eden go. She ran to her brother’s side, took his hand. “Liam, fight. Don’t leave me.”

  “Statue.”

  Kane wanted to scream. All his brother could think about was the statue?

  “I’ll get it. I’ll get all of it.”

  “Thank you for believing in me when no one else did.” He coughed.

  “Stop talking that way. Stop it! You’re not dying. Noah! Do something!”

  “We’re going to get him to a hospital as fast as we can,” Noah said.

  “It’s all your fault, Kane, it’s all you!” Eden sobbed.

  Siobhan rushed out of the tent with towels. “Use these. Stop the bleeding as best you can.” She put her hand on Kane’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s fine,” Kane said. “Dante, get the table from the tent, collapse the legs, we’ll make a stretcher.”

  Dante complied.

  “Eden,” Noah said, “how far to your vehicle?”

  “I can’t believe you shot my brother.”

  “Eden, I have a plane, we’ll get him to a hospital. Where is your car?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “That’s closer than ours,” Kane said.

  “You never understood anything,” Eden said. “Never. All Liam wants is for you to appreciate him.”

  “Eden, you don’t believe that. Not after tonight.” Kane rubbed his eyes. He felt sick. He had failed his family. Eden and Liam. Both. He hadn’t been a good mentor, a good teacher. He hadn’t paid attention. He’d missed the signs. He’d cut them off when they stepped repeatedly out of line because that’s what he did … but they were family. He should have done something
else.

  “He did it for the family. He had to. He had to … for Dad—”

  “Don’t. Just stop.” Kane couldn’t defend his father, he had no idea what Paul Rogan had said to Liam, but Kane knew it wasn’t to find the treasure at all costs. But Liam always heard and believed what he wanted to.

  Still, Kane didn’t want him to die.

  Siobhan and Dante put a sleeping bag on the table, then the men lifted Liam onto it. They strapped him down with duct tape and tied another sleeping bag over him.

  Kane stared at Eden. “Search her, Dunning.”

  Nate complied. Eden stared at him as if he were crazy. As if she hated him.

  She probably did. As much as Liam hated him.

  “Liam had a gun, you could, too.”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “She’s clean,” Dunning said, then handed Kane a knife and a Taser.

  Eden bent down and picked up the statue.

  “Eden,” Liam said from the makeshift stretcher. “Eden.”

  She went to his side. “What?”

  “Can I?”

  She put the head of Saint Michael into Liam’s hand. “I’ll carry the body,” she said.

  Noah took it out of her hands, put it in a backpack, and handed the pack to Nate.

  “Bastard,” she said.

  To Noah’s credit, he didn’t respond. “Ready, go,” he said.

  The four men picked up the table with Liam and walked down the path, Siobhan and Eden silently leading the way with flashlights.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Jack aborted the rescue as soon as he spotted the convoy.

  In addition to the truck with three men in the cab, there was a jeep in the rear carrying two men. Jack couldn’t see into the covered rear of the truck to determine how many more there were.

  Worse, he couldn’t see Lucy. She might be there, but they didn’t know—and they couldn’t risk her being killed during the attack.

  “No, Jack!” Sean jumped up from their hiding place and almost exposed himself.

  Jack pulled him down and held him, pressing his hand over Sean’s mouth. He was taking his own life into his hands by restraining Sean, who was armed with a knife and gun and fear. He was lashing out at the one person who could turn this fucked situation around.

  Sean fought, connected squarely with the side of Jack’s head, but then stopped almost as suddenly as he started. He went limp. Jack continued to restrain him until the trucks had passed.

  Then Jack sat down next to Sean, breathing heavily.

  “She was there,” Sean whispered.

  “Did you see her?”

  Sean shook his head.

  “It would have been a suicide mission.” Jack closed his eyes. Letting those trucks pass by had been one of the hardest things Jack had ever done. “Five men minimum, likely another in the back with Lucy. We couldn’t risk her life, not with so many unknowns. We need to be smart about this.”

  “Jasmine Flores will kill her.”

  “Jasmine is shrewd. Lucy is a high-value asset. Gabriella thinks Jasmine is hurting financially because the government seized most of her accounts. Carson Spade was laundering money for the entire cartel, not just Jasmine’s end of it. Money makes the world go round down here. If the other cartels think she’s weak, they have a tactical advantage, and she knows it. She’ll have other uses for Lucy—which buys us time.”

  “Unless she’s a psycho and wants to kill her on general principles. Lucy took down her operation, Jack. Sent her into hiding. Vengeance is a powerful motivator.”

  “So is greed. But it doesn’t matter at this point—they didn’t kill her at the house, they’re not going to kill her now. We need a tactical plan. The weather is turning quickly. We need to get to our shelter and contact JT. He might have information.”

  “I can’t do this, Jack.”

  “You can. You can and will.”

  Sean was falling apart, and if Jack couldn’t get him back into top form he’d be a liability. But Jack couldn’t bench him. He needed a second man, especially one with Sean’s unique skills. And Sean would never forgive Jack—or himself—if he lost it. Jack had to push him.

  “Sean, if you fail me, you fail Lucy. This is an operation. Put your emotions aside. If you can’t, you’re no good to me—or to Lucy. Understood?”

  Sean took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’m okay.”

  Jack stood and helped Sean up.

  “Camp, JT, plan. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Kane asked Siobhan to go with Noah and Nate and try to save Liam’s life.

  “This is not your fault,” Siobhan said. They stood in the warm rain as Noah and Nate strapped Liam into the small plane. “You know that.”

  He stared at her. “I failed him.”

  “Liam chose his own path,” Siobhan said firmly. “He alone is responsible for his choices.”

  Kane knew she was right, but Liam was his brother. They had never been close, but he was family. That had to mean something. It meant something to Jack Kincaid, who would step up anytime one of his family was threatened, even if they had disagreements.

  Kane was at a loss—he couldn’t see how he could have done anything differently. It was a character flaw, on his part, that he had never been able to understand Liam. More important, Kane hadn’t taken him seriously. That was the crux of the problem. Kane had dismissed Liam as if he were a mere employee, not a brother. And Liam had rebelled in the most destructive way. Kane didn’t know if Liam really believed everything he said or if it had all been twisted up, but it was clear that Liam hated Kane, that he blamed Kane for everything bad that had happened to him, and there was no coming back from that.

  “Kane.” Siobhan stepped forward and touched his face. “I love you.”

  He kissed her. This time, it wasn’t possessive and demanding. It truly was a kiss of affection. Of love.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Stop. Just … stop.” She kissed him again.

  Nate cleared his throat. “We’re ready,” he said.

  Kane walked Siobhan over to the plane and helped her up. He turned to Eden. His sister. He’d failed Liam, and he’d failed her.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” he said. Now wasn’t the time to tell her she also had choices. That she too could have stopped this insanity.

  “You should be. If he dies”—tears rolled down her face—“it’s on you, Kane.”

  “No. I made mistakes, but this is not on me, and you know it. Go. Save him. Sean and Lucy need my help. You have no idea what you have all done, the danger you put her in.”

  Eden slapped him, then climbed into the plane herself, pushing away Nate’s offered assistance.

  Liam probably wasn’t going to survive. They all knew it, except maybe Eden. But there was a slim chance—and the only way they might be able to save Liam was to get him back to the States as soon as possible. Kane turned to Noah. “Get them back safe,” he said.

  “I will.”

  Kane and Dante walked over to the edge of the runway and watched as the plane took off. The flight would be treacherous if the storm moved in any faster, but Noah was a competent pilot. He would get them to the hospital as fast as humanly possible.

  It was all Kane could hope for at this point.

  As soon as they were off, Kane said, “I need to find a place to fuel.”

  “I have a plane,” Dante said. “Philip procured fuel, supplies. He’ll fly us.”

  “I’ll fly us. Where’s the plane?”

  “A small commercial airfield ten minutes from here.” Dante walked over to the jeep, took one look at Kane, and tossed him the keys. Kane got behind the wheel and they sped off as fast as he dared on the rough, wet road.

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to my sister,” Dante said. “I got sucked into Liam’s dreams. I love your brother, as if he were my own.” Dante took a deep breath. “He’s not going to make it, is he?”
>
  Kane didn’t want to discuss Liam. Not now, especially when he was so damn confused about everything that had happened over the last two days. Days? Try years. He was never confused about anything. He always knew what was right, what was wrong, how to get out of any situation. He didn’t live in a world of what-ifs or regrets. Those thoughts led to insanity, especially in his line of work.

  “You can trust Philip,” Dante said.

  “He’s not coming.”

  “Kane, I’m truly sorry about what happened. I didn’t know that Liam planned to grab Lucy. I didn’t know until he called me when he was already on his way to the safe house. I honestly believed she would be safe there. I never would have left her unprotected if I thought Flores’s people were looking for me. Kincaid saved my sister. I owe him. I’m not letting Gabriella or Lucy die.”

  Kane hadn’t wanted to bring Dante with him, but what choice did he have? Not only was Gabriella his sister, but Dante knew the compound and the area, he had resources and people. He knew things. Information was critical.

  But so was trust, and Kane was having a hard time trusting anyone right now.

  “You don’t get a pass, Romero.”

  Dante didn’t say anything. Kane drove where he’d directed, to a small commercial airfield. As soon as Philip saw Dante with Kane, his face fell.

  “What happened?” Philip asked.

  “Long story. Eden and Liam are on their way to the States. Liam was shot.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad.”

  “Oh, God. Did you find it?”

  “The treasure?” Kane exploded. “You can only think about the damn treasure? Your father was right, Dante. It’s cursed. I don’t even believe in fucking curses, but I believe in this one.”

  Dante said to Philip, “Jasmine Flores was looking for me, found Agent Kincaid at the safe house.”

  “Oh, shit,” Philip mumbled. “I’m sorry, Rogan.”

  “You both should have known better. I turned my back on a lot of your shit because no one I cared about got hurt. You’d never been a fool, Dante. This time—” Kane needed to get his head clear. His brother was dying, and Kane’s emotions were too close to the surface. “Is the plane ready?”