Wyatt’s chair rattled beside her. “Don’t talk to her, motherfucker. Do it again and I’ll rip your tongue out and serve it to you with a side of your balls, got me?”
“You’re in no position to make threats to me, Masters.”
“Why are you doing this, Malcolm?” she asked him. How many times had she served the bastard never knowing he was the one who had kidnapped Trent? She’d been misguided thinking Austin was the one behind everything. Only until she’d opened up to Wyatt and Wade had the icy-cold investigation heated up, but that had been too late. Now, Trent was going to die, and so were the men who had stolen her heart. She loved them. There was no denying that now.
Malcolm moved right in front of her and squatted down until they were eye level with each other. “Pretty thing, aren’t you, Mac? Much prettier than Danielle.”
“Was? You mean…” The words got caught in her throat.
“Smart, too. She’s in the other room and still breathing. Not for long. She is a doll, though. She wrote that note for me that came with your dessert. Did you like the pie?” The fucker touched her cheek. “I know it’s your favorite.”
“Get your goddamn hands off of her,” Wade shouted.
Wyatt was closer to her than his brother, and he was straining against his bindings so much that his face was turning beet red.
“Boys, it would take you weeks, if then, to get loose from those restraints, and none of you will live that long. You’ve made my life rather difficult, but I will rise from this. I’ve got quite the retirement planned.” Winters brought the sharp blade up to her throat. “I think you should be the first to go, deary.”
She closed her eyes, realizing this was the end and there was no way out of it.
Then she heard a crash and opened her eyes wide.
Trent had broken free of his restraints somehow and knocked Malcolm into Wyatt’s chair, which had apparently toppled onto the asshole in the commotion.
“Hang on, bro,” Wade said, still trying to work his hands free. “Trent, get me loose.”
Her brother was alive, but he was in terrible shape.
He limped behind Wade’s chair and started to unravel the duct tape that held the cowboy.
Trying to free himself from being pinned down, Winters writhed violently under Wyatt and the heavy wooden chair.
Wyatt was using the only things he had to fight the asshole—his teeth and his head.
Winters’s face was bloodied from the bites and blows from Wyatt’s attacks, but Wyatt’s was mauled even more than before.
She spotted the knife on the floor a mere fraction of an inch from Winters’s extended hand.
Any moment the crazed man might get it and stab Wyatt.
“Knife. Knife. Knife,” she rambled like a woman about to see a murder and unable to do a damn thing about it.
“Get it, Trent,” Wade yelled.
Her brother moved to get the weapon, but stumbled forward on top of Wyatt’s chair instead of retrieving it.
His attempt to rescue her had clearly taken the last of his reserves.
She saw Malcolm’s fingertips touch the hilt of the deadly knife.
Was this it?
Was the glimmer of hope about to be shattered?
Was Winters going to win?
No. She couldn’t accept that. They’d come too far. Trent was alive. She was alive. Her men were alive.
She had one last card to play.