Caught

Click.

He didn’t.

He opened his eyes to meet his brother’s bloodshot blue ones.

The chamber was empty. Ivan’s sick laugh echoed in the forests silence as he shoved Cody back. “I’m not killing you yet.”

“I’m getting that sense,” Cody grumbled, reaching into the back of his waistband for his own weapon …

* * *

Heart pounding, watching both men below, Megan realized that she was a fool. She was an idiot. Cody was a professional. And she had thought to follow him and do what? Face your fears … Save Cody …

What an idiot! Now she was stuck in this net, and the man she loved was down there, at the mercy of this killer, all because he’d taken the advantage by kidnapping her—oh, God.

Cody seemed to be plotting. His eyes were narrowed by the sun, but she could see him reaching behind him, weighing Ivan, and measuring his distance to the tree.

“Let me down, let me down!” she screamed, hating the trapped sensation hanging here gave her.

Ivan cut the rope so swiftly, Megan crashed to the forest floor like a falling rock. The air was knocked out of her with a whoomp, and quickly Ivan put the knife away then pulled her to her feet, his face contorted as he forcibly untangled her. “You always got the pretty girls, didn’t you, Cody? Made the football team. Made Mom and Dad so proud. Even now, you’re a goddamned cop.” He smiled thinly, cupping Megan’s breast in his free hand as he put the gun to her temple. “Does it bother you when I do this? When I have something that you want?” He massaged, and Megan bit back a strangled protest, revolted by his touch, when Cody took a menacing step forward.

“Fuck you.” Cody’s breathing became ragged, his eyes so dark, they could’ve been black. Megan feared for him, for herself, kept remembering the bodies, the way this man, this man, had killed two adults at the tender age of sixteen.

“Fuck me? No, brother. I’d much rather fuck her.”

When Megan kicked his shin and broke free, it took Cody only seconds to reach for her, but by then Ivan had grabbed her by the throat. “You’re not going anywhere, Maggie.”

Cody whipped out his gun and aimed. “Let her go, Ivan.”

Ivan’s cold, hard laugh made the hair rise in her nape. “Ahh, Cody, always wanting to boss me around ’cause you’re a minute older. You’re not boss here, I am. I have the girl now.”

“She walks, Ivan. She walks now and we’ll settle this.”

“Oh yes? But you see … maybe she doesn’t want to walk—” he licked his tongue into her ear and her stomach roiled in disgust. “Do you know why I killed them, Maggie? Because of you. Did you know what your boyfriend did, Meg? Huh? Did you know what he did? He said he was taking you from me. My parents thought I was not good enough for you. Because I was not my brother.” He shot a look of venom at Cody. “But for a moment I was able to make you believe I was him, didn’t I? Last night?” he cooed into her ear. “When I touched you, you believed I was that guy, the perfect guy.”

Bile rose up to her throat at the memory, and she wanted to scrape her mouth clean of him once more.

What a fool she’d been.

So desperate to be touched, loved, by Cody, that she had not seen the difference of the touch, of his taste, until she’d seen him—the man she loved—with a gun pointed to his head.

They were nothing alike.

Ivan had tried to look like him, but his essence, his goodness, his decency, had a scent, a feel, a vibe. Oh God, she wanted that strength around her, that scent, that man.

Ivan curved his hand around her nape and wound his fingers into the blond curls of her hair. “You think I haven’t thought of this, too, Maggie Meg?” He massaged her scalp. “That I didn’t fantasize about this even when I was just a boy?”

“LET. HER. GO.” Cody’s trigger finger was trembling, and Meg wondered if she ducked … would he shoot?

Cody was so damned decent inside, she wondered if he’d kill his own brother. Despite the fact that he was a murderer, Cody had not killed him before.

Ivan yanked her head back so hard the pain burned across her scalp, tearing a gasp and a whimper out of her. “Toss me the gun. And the other gun. And the knife.”

“You won’t kill her, Ivan,” Cody hissed in a low, threatening voice, “but I have no qualms about killing you.”

“I’ll scar her for life! I’ll make her suffer, you son of a bitch!”

“We have the same mother, you moron.”