Caught by Red Garnier Page A

“You lie. You took her already, didn’t you? She’s yours? She fucking loves you, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?”
    â€œNo,” he began, intending to placate him while he found a way to set Megan loose, but Megan spoke out at the same time.
    â€œYes, I do. I love him. I’ve always loved you, Cody. Always.” Her voice broke near the end, and it could’ve been the last little string that held Cody’s sanity together.
    A thousand emotions bombarded him at once. He felt hundreds of different sensations. Like when lightning strikes, and you land on a fire pit, and you’re trampled by a pack of elephants, and you fall from a parachute, all at once.
    â€œYou don’t love me, and what in Christ’s last day were you doing at Marcel’s, Meg?” he demanded because she shouldn’t have been there.
    She should not love him.
    The monster, the monster had marked her little wrist, had bruised her lips …
    â€œYou were a bet, did you know that?” Ivan sneered. “Did loverboy here tell you?”
    â€œShe leaves, Ivan. Right now. This is between you and me.”
    But Ivan was talking to Megan. “He knew I’d kill them if he took you out that day, and he still did it! He’s the monster, not I!” Ivan rammed his fist to his chest, shaking his head as he fought back tears. “I’ll bet fucking her has been the most exciting thing you’ve ever done in your life.” He shot the accusation like a missile at Cody and took a few steps forward. “How about I show you how a real man fucks?”
    Shaking with fury, Cody spoke through his teeth. “How about you eat my shit.”
    â€œWhy don’t you eat this, brother?” Covering the space between them in a flash, he pulled out a Glock just like Cody’s and rammed the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
    Cody shut his eyes as he expected to explode.
    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.”
    â€œI’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.
    â€œLet 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.
    â€œFuck 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.
    â€œFuck me? No, brother. I’d