Identical Threat

by Tyler Anne Snell

  “So what does that mean for him and the Stone sisters?” Desmond motioned between them. “You’re just going to let me go in there and shoot your own people?”

  The sun was back in the sky, uncovered by the clouds. It bathed the front half of the house next to them in light. It also gave Desmond the clearest view of the man he’d seen so far.

  Tall, well built and custom tailored. His hair was on the longer side of short and well kept. There was no stubble above his lip or against his jaw. A youthfulness rang from his quick and fluid movements but there was an aged wariness that circled his eyes. They were dark gray, much like the cloud that had moved on with the storm.

  Desmond didn’t recognize him at all.

  Not a hint. Not a whisper.

  But then he saw the scar on his hand.

  Suddenly Desmond was eight again.

  The man who had taken them had had that same scar. An X on the skin between the knuckles of his thumb and index finger and his wrist. Such a small but memorable detail. One of the only details the triplets had remembered that had made their abductor stand out.

  Caleb, especially, had been affected by that scar. He’d admitted to Desmond that it had taken him years until he stopped looking for that scar on every man he met.

  Now here Desmond was seeing it for the first time since he was a terrified and hurt kid living a nightmare.

  Yet the man with the same scar wasn’t the same man.

  But he sure enough recognized the connection Desmond had just made. He glanced at his hand and then used it to point to the house.

  “The man you managed to shoot out near the barn was an idiot, but my other two men in there are not. They’re good shots, which is why I’m assuming you and Mr. Mercer are still in good shape. Those two knew not to shoot you,” he said. A flash of anger moved across his face, tensing a muscle in his forehead. “Ryan is the one who hit Caleb and that’s exactly what broke the rules.” He jabbed his index finger in the air again toward the house. “You can sit here and ask me questions. Then shoot me and try to go in there and put two highly trained men down and hope you can deal with the egotistical maniac before he kills your girlfriend and her sister or I can walk in there right now and make my men leave with me. But, either way, we’re both running out of time. I know the cavalry is on their way and Ryan has been in that house for at least two minutes.”

  He dropped his hand to his side again. Desmond watched as the scar shaped like an X went with it.

  “So what will it be, Desmond? Me or the redheads?”

  The Nash triplet abduction had consumed every part of the Nash family’s lives since that interrupted game of hide-and-seek all those years ago. He’d given Riley his version of what had happened and how it had affected him but he hadn’t told her everything.

  He hadn’t told her how it had cracked a marriage that should have withstood decades.

  He hadn’t told her how it had taken a good, honest man and made him lose faith in the world around him, seeing ghosts where there were none and creating his own personal demons that eventually saw to the end of him.

  He hadn’t told her how it had convinced Declan he was somehow responsible and in turn put him in a profession that held nothing but responsibility to everyone but himself, making a happy boy ready for the future into a man who toed the line between justice and obsession as their father had.

  He hadn’t told her how it had created a rage within Madi. One that had burned so hot that an invisible ring of fire had kept anyone and everyone away from her for years, driving her slowly into self-imposed isolation.

  He hadn’t told her that, while Caleb had tried his best to live a happier life, he’d subconsciously marched right into his father’s old one, hell-bent on finding the answer to every mystery no matter the cost.

  He hadn’t told her that the real reason he had gone into business in the beginning was to make enough money so that he could buy the world. Buy their world. The one in which the story of the Nash family abduction was common knowledge. The one that they’d all never really left. And, only then, have every tool imaginable to find out the truth of what happened.

  Because, one thing the Nash triplets and Declan hadn’t told anyone was that they were all still waiting for the second shoe to drop.

  They were all still those scared children, at least in part, and probably always would be. At least, until they found the man who took them.

  The man with the scar on his hand.

  He hadn’t told Riley any of this but, in that moment, staring at the first clue they’d had in over a decade, Desmond realized he’d already planned to tell her one day.

  In the future. In their future.

  So, there wasn’t an option. Not really. Not for Desmond.

  He looked the man in the suit in the eyes and had never been more sure in his decision than he was now.

  “I choose the redheads.”

  There was surprise in the man’s expression but he didn’t waste any more time talking. He stood, kept his gun down and walked up the stairs. Desmond followed, a firm grip on his own weapon. They walked right through the open front door like they were ready to start their vacation.

  A man wearing a black blazer spun to face them. Desmond worried he’d made a mistake at the sight of his gun. Yet the second his eyes settled on the man in the suit, he lowered it.

  Another man, dressed nicely as well, walked from the back of the room with widened eyes.

  “We’re leaving,” the man in the suit said to both of them. His voice carried despite his lowered tone. Desmond glanced around to see if Ryan was there.

  He wasn’t.

  He also wasn’t in the loft space on the second floor.

  It made his gut twist.

  “He wasn’t supposed to shoot anyone,” the man said, coming closer. He looked like a scared child tattling on another child to avoid getting into trouble. “We told him not to but he hit one of them.”

  The man in the suit nodded.

  “Which is why we’re leaving. Now.”

  The lackey kept his eyes widened but didn’t complain. He was out the front door in a flash. As the one in the blazer went to follow, Desmond stopped him.

  “Where are the women?”

  The man looked at his boss who gave a quick nod.

  “Hiding somewhere in here. Alcaster has been cussing going through the rooms.”

  Desmond didn’t dare feel relief. Not until he could see Riley. Touch her. Know she was safe.

  The man followed his friend out. His boss hung back a second.

  “We both know that the only way to stop a man like Alcaster from coming back is to kill him.”

  Then he left too.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Their plan had been simple.

  Two of the bedrooms upstairs were connected by a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. When Ryan and his unmerry men came into the first bedroom Riley and Jenna would be listening at the bathroom and then fall back to the other bedroom and slip out into the hallway and leave.

  If the men split up and searched the bedrooms at the same time, they’d use the bathroom to hide.

  If the men decided to search the bathroom at the same time, effectively cutting off their options for escape, while they were hiding in it?

  Well, they were screwed.

  A simple plan with a simple conclusion.

  But, it wasn’t like Riley or Jenna had many options. Once they’d stripped down to their underwear—with Riley thanking every god that might exist that she’d put her panties and bra back on after she’d showered with Desmond, scared that his mother would somehow show up again—and thrown the clothes and shoes out of view in the corner of the loft, they’d barely had the time to slip into the first bedroom.

  Considering the jump from the second story to the ground was too high, there were no roof overha
ngs, and no weapons, makeshift or otherwise, unless you counted pillows with embroidered sunsets and a myriad of white linen towels, they weren’t escaping or fighting their way out. At least not with any good odds in their favor. So, they’d taken to their simple yet extremely easy-to-foil plan with vigor.

  Which was why they were presently in the room farthest from the loft, Riley with her ear to the bathroom door and Jenna with her ear to the hallway door. For what felt like hours neither did so much as breathe.

  Then Jenna started to point wildly at her door.

  She hurriedly went to Riley and together, as quietly as they could, they slipped into the bathroom.

  Riley’s heart was in her throat and she closed the door behind them. Unlike the bedroom doors, these locked. That didn’t mean anything when it came to bullets but it would slow them down. Riley twisted the lock and they hurried through the next door.

  Then they were standing in the other bedroom.

  When Ryan started laughing from just inside the bedroom door, gun aimed at them, they didn’t even have time to scream.

  “Move and I shoot one of you,” Ryan announced around his smile. “I don’t care which at this point so may that keep the other one of you from doing anything dumb for fear of me taking out your beloved twin.”

  Riley was prepared to angle herself in front of Jenna when Jenna instead pushed against her shoulder. It was a subtle move that meant she didn’t want Riley to do exactly what she was going to do.

  Ryan motioned to the door they’d just come through and laughed again.

  “By the way, that little attempt at a trick to get past me was what you used to do with Hartley when you played hide-and-seek.” He surprised Riley by addressing Jenna without hesitation. That shock must have shown. He glanced down at Riley’s thigh. “And may I take a moment to say thank you for your impulsiveness. It makes telling you two apart much easier.”

  Riley had never in her life been so mad at herself for getting a tattoo. She didn’t have time to bask in that anger for too long.

  Ryan was a talkative man. He was used to walking into a room and commanding it. Just as he had thought he should be able to command a wife. Even now, in such an intense situation that was so far from a boardroom or cocktail party, he was raring to capture their attention.

  To be entertaining.

  To talk.

  To hear his own voice.

  Riley couldn’t believe she’d ever thought any nice thing about the man. She’d once called him handsome with his thick, dark hair, sharp facial features and jade-green eyes. She’d once been impressed with his unwavering confidence and smarts. She’d once been enamored at how wonderfully he’d treated her sister.

  Now every opinion had twisted into the thing that stood no more than a few feet from them.

  “I have to say, the last few weeks have been a bit of a headache. Who knew either of you had it in you to be so much of an obstacle. I certainly didn’t.” He shook his head. “Do you know how much I’ve had to pay just to make it all look like Maria went insane? A lot of money. More than either one of you is worth, I can tell you that.”

  “You wanted to kill me and blame it on your mistress?”

  Jenna’s voice bit as she asked the question. Ryan’s smile moved into a smirk.

  “Oh no, my darling Jenna, that was plan C.” He looked at Riley. “Thanks to this one switching places with you and Brett’s idiocy, I had to make a new contract with my nicely dressed friends. But then, when you weren’t busy messing everything up, your poor, lovesick ex-husband had to try to sabotage me.” He snorted. “Davies was a good guy but he’s never had the strength to know his place about the likes of you. Even after you abandoned him he still ran after you like some whipped little pup. Disgusting, if you ask me.”

  “So you manipulated Maria to go right where you wanted her to be,” Riley guessed.

  He nodded.

  “Maria had many assets I’ll be sad to lose but one I appreciated the most was her willingness to listen to what I had to say without question.” He cut his eyes to Jenna. “A trait we both know you never possessed.”

  Riley grabbed Jenna’s arm. It was more to keep her from springing forward and wiping the smugness from the man they both once thought they knew. Just as it was also to keep Riley from doing the same. If they attacked him when he was so close, there was no doubt in her mind that he’d shoot at least one of them.

  And Riley couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t be Jenna. Just as she was sure Jenna knew the bullet might hit Riley.

  It was the perfect way to keep them both in line.

  “So what was the plan? Your girlfriend goes crazy, terrorizes your ex-wife and kills a bunch of people?” Riley asked.

  “That was the idea. Until that pathetic puppy Davies decided to team up with the most annoying family in the world.”

  “But then you shot him and Maria.”

  Riley replayed the scene in her head again. It still made her stomach knot.

  Ryan had gotten out to talk to Maria, Julian and Desmond who was playing the part of captive. The plan, as far as Riley could tell, had been to catch the man in the act of issuing the deaths of Jenna and Desmond in front of Julian, Davies and Caleb, who was lurking behind the cars.

  But then Ryan had shocked them all by shooting the two people who had been and pretended to be on his side.

  If Jenna hadn’t have sprung out and pulled Riley aside in time, he would have ended her too.

  “There were too many players in the game,” Ryan replied. “So I shelled out some more money to get more of a team willing to play for me and started to clean shop. My girlfriend killing my ex and your ex killing you and your new lover? Honestly, that would have been perfect. But this story is still writing itself. Between Maria and Davies? I can just switch their roles. Either way it’s all about exes killing exes. And who doesn’t like a story about that?”

  He looked around the room.

  “It doesn’t matter where the end of it happens. I’m untouchable. And I’ll be even more so when my son is back in my custody.”

  Riley tightened her grip on Jenna.

  “You’re insane if you think you’ll ever get him,” she roared, maternal glory coming to the forefront. “Once again your hubris has fooled you into thinking that you’re a god when you’re not even a man.”

  Rage, the kind he used to hide behind closed doors, flashed across Ryan’s face. His hand tightened on the gun.

  “Listen here you little—”

  “Move and I’ll shoot.”

  Riley’s very own cowboy moved into the room behind Ryan with gun raised and face made of stone.

  Riley dropped her hold on Jenna’s arm only for Jenna to grab her hand. She squeezed it as Desmond issued his command again.

  Ryan’s anger at Jenna smoothed away.

  It was alarming.

  “I’m assuming by Riley’s reaction that Desmond Nash is behind me?”

  Desmond didn’t take his eyes off the back of Ryan’s head.

  “All you need to know is I’ll have no problem shooting you if it means saving them.” His baritone was thrumming with authority. The sound wrapped around Riley like an invisible safety blanket.

  Ryan started to smirk. His gun was still raised. Now it was pointed at Riley.

  “If you shoot me this close to them, I’m afraid your bullet would find a second, unwanted target. The women would need to move. But the second they do I’ll shoot and then you’ll shoot and that will probably just kill whichever twin I didn’t. You see, it’s all just a mess that starts and ends with you trying to save them.”

  Ryan was right. They were too close. It was too much of a risk. Desmond finally met her eye. The smallest pinch of warmth spread at the fact he looked at her and stayed looking at her. Riley believed then that the world could be ending around them and Desmond would st
ill be able to know which sister she was.

  “That silence you hear? That’s the sound of an impasse,” Ryan added.

  Desmond tilted his head to the left. Jenna squeezed her hand. Whether it was a bond created because they were twins, best friends, or just two half-naked women in a bad situation trying to make it out alive, Riley knew exactly what the Stone sisters were about to do.

  She gave the smallest of nods to Desmond.

  It did not go unnoticed.

  “It looks like I’ve found the sister I’m—” Ryan started.

  Desmond didn’t let him finish.

  Riley lunged to the left as Jenna lunged in sync to the right.

  However, the gunshot that sounded afterward was followed by glass shattering and not by Ryan in pain.

  * * *

  RILEY SCRAMBLED INTO the open bathroom and spun around to see Jenna throw herself over the bed. Another gunshot went off and exploded into the wall next to the newly broken window.

  The sound of a scuffle ensued.

  Riley backpedaled and turned toward the other door. She unlocked it and hightailed it through the adjoining bedroom and back out into the hall.

  Just in time to see Desmond and Ryan tumble into the hallway.

  “Run,” Desmond yelled out as he grabbed Ryan’s arm.

  Riley’s stomach turned to ice as she realized he still had his gun but Desmond didn’t. When Ryan saw her he kicked out of Desmond’s grip like a bucking bronco.

  One second went by where Ryan was completely free.

  It was all the time he needed to take aim at Riley and pull the trigger.

  Riley closed her eyes on reflex, waiting for the pain.

  She thought about her sister and parents and Hartley. About the Nash family, Marty McLinnon, and she even thought about Davies.

  The last person who flashed in her mind’s eye, however, was the most detailed of all.

  Desmond Nash in his cowboy hat, giving her that charming smile that made her stomach flutter.

  Riley waited for her end but, after a moment, felt nothing but the chill of being half-naked and wet.