“Boss, two girls escaped.”
My hand immediately tugged on the reins and forced my horse to a stop. There was nothing to look at except the circles from the flashlights and the darkness that surrounded them, but I stared like there was something there. “Which girls?” I already knew the answer before I asked the question.
But I needed to hear it anyway.
“The sisters.”
I inhaled a deep breath of rage, the exhale coming out as steam from my nostrils. I released a loud growl into the night, loud enough to make my horse neigh and jolt in fright. I yanked on the reins and forced him to turn around, to face the wind and the blizzard that had been on our tail. I kicked my boots into the sides and urged the horse into a sprint. I screamed into the phone. “Find. Them. Now.”
I sat in the armchair in my cabin. A glass of scotch was on the table in front of me. I was in desperate need of a drink, but I was too angry to do anything other than stare. “Do you know anything about this?”
Magnus sat across from me, his hood pushed back, his brown eyes locked on my face. His brown hair was tousled from the wind, and his skin was pale white from the cold. His stare lasted a long time. “No.”
I trusted no one in this world. Not a soul. Eyes were in the back of my head because I expected to be stabbed in the back by my own men. My butler had served me for years, but I kept tabs on him too. There was only one exception to that.
My brother.
So I accepted his answer without doubt. He wouldn’t lie to me—especially for a woman. “How did she escape?”
His forearms rested on his knees, and he leaned forward, massaging his hands so the ice in his knuckles would thaw. “She must have taken something from the clearing to allow her to pick locks. The doorknobs aren’t busted.”
“She’s the one who took the bow and arrow.” That fucking cunt was sneaking around in my camp, right under my fucking nose, making a fool out of me.
“We searched her cabin and found nothing.”
I clenched my jaw as I thought about Melanie. She couldn’t be forced to leave her cabin. She went willingly. She went out into a fucking blizzard with her dumb-ass sister to get away from me.
When I asked her to come with me, she said no.
Did she say no because they had planned this?
I stared at nothing as I waited for news. The men had been sent out with horses and hounds, and they would find them—dead or alive.
Magnus bowed his head and continued to rub his palms together.
The door opened. “They’ve returned.” Alix stood in the doorway, his face hidden.
“Dead or alive?” I was on my feet instantly, already moving for the door.
“Alive.” Alix stepped aside.
Before I got to the door, I turned to Magnus. “You. Stay.” I spoke to him like a dog because that cunt had turned him into a dog for pussy.
His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked at me, his face indifferent but his panicked eyes giving him away.
“You don’t want to watch your whore hang, right?” I turned away and listened to Alix close the door behind me. I marched through the snow and approached the clearing, desperate to hang that bitch who dared to mock me. No one escaped this camp—and I would prove that now. I wouldn’t let my brother’s interference change her fate, not this time.
The girls were pinned to the cold ground, their wrists bound behind their backs.
I approached Melanie on the ground, her cheek against the snow with her eyes on her sister. My boots thudded against the earth then I stopped directly beside her. She could sense me before she even looked at me. It was obvious by the change in her breathing. She was scared…and she should be scared.
“We’ll hang the other girl first.” One guard gave a gentle kick to Melanie’s foot. “And make this one watch.”
“No!” Raven sobbed. “Please…”
I almost didn’t speak because her tears brought me some satisfaction. “Just this one.” My eyes burned into Raven’s face, her round face, her plain lips, her plain everything. It was hard to believe the two of them were related because she was a fucking hag compared to Melanie.
Raven’s eyes shifted to mine, and the hatred in her gaze was volcanic. She writhed on the ground like she’d do anything to break free of her ropes and lunge at me. “Don’t fucking touch her!” Her screams were mixed with angry tears, and she yanked so hard on her wrists that she rubbed red marks on the surface of her skin. “You motherfucker!”
One of the guys kicked her hard and made her gasp for air.