Page 10 of Breaking His Exile

Rainey stared at the dark radio.

“Against my will.” Her voice was thin, but it was steady now. “Why are they saying that? There had to be at least twenty witnesses in that bar.”

“It’s SoS Montana territory. None of those witnesses will tell the truth.”

“Then take me to River. We can explain everything, and he’ll believe us.”

Evander didn’t doubt that.

It was the smart play. The obvious one. A ranch full of hard men who protected their own. Gates. Guns. People who’d put themselves between her and the club without being asked. Every reason in the world to point the truck toward Solace and be rid of her by dawn.

Except…

Taking her to Valor Ridge meant walking every gun the Sons of Sin could put on the road straight through the gates of the one good place left in this part of the world.

“No.”

She jerked back. “No?”

“No,” he repeated.

“You just—you killed a man for me less than an hour ago, but driving me forty miles to my brother is too much to ask?”

“That’s right.”

“FYI, now you are holding me against my will.”

“You show up at that ranch tonight, you bring all of it with you.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

“You want to get River killed, that’s the fastest way I know.”

That landed. She folded back into the seat and went quiet.

“So where, then?” she asked finally.

He turned them east, off the good gravel, onto a track that climbed. “Somewhere we can hide.”

three

The track climbed until the pines closed in on both sides and the road under the tires stopped being a road at all.

Rainey braced herself against the dash as the truck pitched through a washout, her ribs lighting up with a sharp, bright pain that made her teeth clench. Evander drove like he knew exactly how much punishment his suspension could take and had no intention of sparing it. The headlights carved a narrow tunnel through the dark, catching the silver undersides of leaves and the pale trunks of aspen crowding close.

She didn’t ask where they were going again. He wouldn’t tell her.

The truck slowed.

Evander cut the wheel hard left, and the headlights swept across a chain link half-buried in undergrowth.

A gate.

No sign, no marker, nothing to distinguish it from the thousand other forgotten logging roads that riddled these mountains. He reached across her for the glove box and found a key. He shoved his door open, and the damp mountain cold poured in, carrying the smell of pine sap and soil and something mineral underneath, like the mountain itself was breathing.

She watched him through the windshield. He moved without sound. The chain came free with a soft metallic rattle. He pushed the gate open just wide enough for the truck to pass, then climbed back into the driver’s seat without a word. The truck crawled through. He re-locked the gate behind them, and the chain settled back into place with a finality that made her stomach drop.

Five more minutes of driving. The track narrowed until branches scraped both sides of the truck with a sound like fingernails on slate.