“I like it.” I kiss her wrist again. “But it’ll have to be a woman tattoo artist.”
“Caveman.” She rolls her eyes, but she grins. Then she gets up on her toes and kisses me.
I slide my hand around the back of her neck, holding her there for one more kiss because I can. When we finally break apart, I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in.
"Come on," I say, my hand finding hers. "Let's go home."
92
COLE
The girl sobs quietly in the corner of the trailer.
Not loud anymore. They never stay loud after the first few days.
Good thing, because it's fucking annoying. I lean back in the chair across from the surveillance monitors, boot heels propped on the table, bourbon burning down my throat. She’s lucky. I wasthisclose to cutting her tongue off. Some men prefer the women they buy to be silent.
The rain hammers the metal roof overhead. Fucking Montana spring. Fucking miserable. If I didn’t have this mess Kelly left me to clean up, I’d be running my business from a fucking beach while drinking pina coladas.
I take another drink of my bourbon. At least Jake Callahan and his boys did the heavy lifting for me. I have another couple employees I might put on their path for them to take out.
I underestimated them. I underestimated Jake Callahan with his righteous fury and Mason Rivera’s sniper's patience. I underestimated the girl too, and her willingness to walk straight into hell for vengeance.
Dr. Lily Carter. I’d have recognized her a year ago if her last name hadn’t been different.
A slow smile pulls at my mouth as I pick up the photograph lying beside the laptop.
It's old and creased from handling. Two girls, eighteen and twenty-one. Blond hair. Sharp hazel eyes. The older one has her arm around the younger, protective even then. The defiant expression on both their faces is almost identical.
Sisters.
The resemblance is stronger now that I've seen them both up close. Lily has that same tilt to her chin, that same refusal to break even when she should.
One of my men steps through the door, rainwater dripping from his jacket. He's careful not to track mud across the floor—he knows better.
“Boss.” He nods his head in greeting. "We found her.”
Every muscle in my body stills. "Where?"
"Texas." He tosses a burner phone onto the table beside me. "There's more on the phone."
I pick up the phone. A text message glows on the screen beside a grainy surveillance image of a woman exiting a gas station at two in the morning. Baseball cap pulled low. Blond hair visible beneath the brim. Older than the girl in the photograph, worn down by years of survival, but unmistakable.
Mandy.
I set the phone down carefully and take another sip of bourbon, letting the information settle. Lily was wrong. Her sister didn't die thirteen years ago when Patrick Kelly put a bullet in her. Mandy survived—crawled away, disappeared into the system, stayed hidden all this time.
Smart girl, but not smart enough.
"How long has she been in Texas?" I ask.
"At least six months.” He shrugs. “Working under a fake name at a diner outside Amarillo. Keeps to herself. No close friends. No family contact."
"She know about Dr. Carter?"
He shakes his head. "Doesn't look like it. She's been off-grid since she escaped. No social media, no phone records that connect back to Montana. If she knows her sister's alive, she hasn't tried to reach out."
Interesting. Two sisters, both survivors, both thinking the other is dead. Both living in the shadows, afraid to surface because they believe the past will find them.