Page 7 of The King's Pawn
Val folded his paper, tossed it onto the table, and lifted his gaze. “Well?”
Noah had his father’s penetrating blue eyes, but the rest of Noah’s slim grace likely came from his mother’s side. Noah was quick and agile, whereas his father was stocky and solid. Val didn’t need to be agile. Predators didn’t run. They beat any threat into the ground.
“He did well,” I found myself saying, remembering how fierce Noah had been in those not-so-final moments. “He faced death with honor.”
“At least he died right.” His father sniffed, but that was all. No regret, no moment of reflection.
An unexpected twinge of irritation tightened my chest. As far as he knew, his son was dead in the dirt, and he couldn’t say anything more thanhe died right.
He picked up his coffee. “Terrible business. My own son, a betrayer. The rot must always be cut out, Killian, no matter the cost.”
Noah had said he hadn’t betrayed the family, but he would have said anything to escape. I knew Noah, and this kind of mess was right out of his playbook. Fucking a Southie girl, spilling secrets. But the way he’d said he hadn’t betrayed his father…“Betraying the family is the one thing I have never done.”I’d never heard him speak of anything with conviction before. Noah had cared, when facing death. That, I knew to be true.
While his father didn’t care about him at all.
“You can go, Killian.”
I turned to leave.
“And… make sure it’s cleaned up. No trace. Understand?”
“All part of the job.” I left the house, jogged down the steps, and climbed into the car, thoughts turning to Noah tied up and waiting in the cabin.
I’d lit the cabin’s fire before leaving, but it would be fading down now, and with the weather as it was, Noah wouldn’t last long in the cold.
A few hours’ drive, and then he and I were going to have a sincere chat about the future. If he had one.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Noah
I jolted awake to the crunching of tires on snow. Light streamed through dusty drapes, so it was day out. How long had I been asleep? A few hours? The fire had burned down to just smoldering ash and a chill had crept in.
A car door slammed. Killian was back with supplies. I’d convince him to untie me so I could use a proper bathroom, and then, once I’d locked the door, I’d climb out of the bathroom window. There had to be other cabins around. People. Cars. I’d steal a car, drive, and keep on driving. Never,everreturn to Boston. Problem solved for everyone.
Boots stomped closer to the cabin, clomped on the porch, and stopped.
What had he stopped for?
The door handle rattled, the door opened, and the man who entered was definitely not Killian. Most of him was thick coat, then my gaze dropped to the rifle in his hand and back up to a grizzled, gnarly face that had seen a few too many harsh winters.
“What the hell do we have here?” the old man said.
“Uh… Hey. Long story, but as you can see, I’m tied up, so if you’d like to let me go, that would be great.”
He kicked snow from his boots, closed the door, and shrugged off his coat and draped it over one of the chairs Killian had shoved against the wall. He didn’t seem in a hurry. Or all that concerned to find someone tied up in what I assumed to be his cabin. He grabbed a few logs from the stack, stoked the fire, and tossed the logs on, taking his sweet time.
I eyed the gun he’d left by the door. Hunting rifle. Was that what he was doing out here, hunting? The cabin hadn’t seemed lived in. It had been cold when we’d arrived. The kind of cold suggesting it had been empty for days, not hours. Why was he here now? Had Killian sent him?
When he straightened and eyed me again, I showed him my bound wrists. “So, yeah, the ropes?”
He barely looked at the ropes, instead staring at my face. “Who did this to you, huh?”
“Probably best not to say.”
He stood with his back to the fire, warming himself andnotuntying me. In fact, his eyes roamed in a way that had me wishing I’d bothered to button my shirt up to my neck. With every passing second of the skin-crawling gaze on me, it was becoming clear he was not going to let me go.