Page 84 of Montana Silence

“There’s also an accident between you, and traffic is slowing. At this rate, we don’t see a way for you to catch up to them.”

I swore, and Daniel cut me off. “Catch up to them in thecar, Liam.”

“You have something else in mind?”

“We do,” Noah said. “Get ready to fly, brother.”

Relief flooded my system as my brain shifted into a different kind of mission mode. “What do you have for me?”

“Remember our chase with Emma? Police chopper,” Daniel said. “Three more exits. Get off and take a right. Four miles straight west. We’ll feed you the rest of the directions as you go.”

I wove through traffic, barely clearing the cars I was passing. “What did you tell them? Are they going to hold me back?”

“No,” Noah said. “They’ve been instructed to follow your orders and get you where you need to go. As soon as you get there, you’ll have an open line and everything you need.”

My heart pounded in my chest, flickering through the many different possibilities. “Parachutes?”

“No.”

A chute would take too long anyway. The car wasn’t going to stop long enough for me to drift down from the sky. “Guns?”

“Yes,” Daniel said. “As many as they have. And I know you’re not going to like this, but try to keep the asshole alive.”

He was right. I didn’t like it. Generally, I liked to think I wasn’t a violent person, but this was Mara, and someone else had put their hands on her. “Why.” I spat the word. It wasn’t a question; it was a demand.

“Because we don’t know if he’s taken anyone else,” Lucas said. “And if there’s a chance of saving anyone else, we need to take it.”

“That being said…” Daniel was far calmer than I was. “If it’s a choice between keeping him alive and saving Mara? You know what to do.”

“Damn right,” I said.

My phone buzzed.

Liam. I love you.

The words hit me straight in the chest. That was a goodbye. She was preparing me in case she didn’t come back. But she was coming back. We were going to have the life we envisioned together, and this was going toendfor her.

I would try to keep Neil alive, but Mara came first. Speeding off the exit they instructed, I barely slowed down. I didn’t care if I had to jump out of the helicopter without a chute, I was getting the woman I loved. One way or another.

Chapter27

Mara

Mute.

I was mute.

Every fear I’d ever had came back to life, and my body was frozen in place. No chance of moving, barely breathing, let alone speaking. My phone lay smashed on the ground behind us at the gas station. Neil had ripped it out of my hand and made sure to crush it under his heel before shutting the door and locking it.

Even if I wanted to move, the handcuffs made it difficult.

I didn’t see it at first. But the man in the back seat looked like Malcolm. Not enough to be mistaken for him, but he’d clearly had work done to look like the man who haunted my nightmares. It wasn’t a good look.

Not that I was going to say it.

He talked like him too. The tone and cadence. He’d studied Malcolm until he wasbecominghim.

It had been nearly an hour of breathless silence. I moved, and the handcuffs made a grating metallic sound in the silence.