Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            At least he wasn’t dead, although he’d apparently come pretty damn close.

            “I’m fine,” DJ grunted. He flexed his left shoulder, then moved that arm around, swallowing the pain. “See? Full range of motion.”

            Which wasn’t nearly true. Fortunately, he’d trained for years to shoot with either hand. He wouldn’t be completely helpless when he left the compound, but the pain was still excruciating. Sleeping on a pallet on a cold, damp stone floor wasn’t helping matters any. He couldn’t wait to get to civilization so that he could sleep in a real bed for a change.

            “Not quite,” Coleen murmured, “but I gave up trying to tell you what to do years ago.”

            Because she was not stupid and she valued her life. DJ didn’t suffer fools, nor did he allow anyone to give him orders.

            No one except the elderly man in the chair. Pastor was the shepherd of Eden’s flock. He was the leader, and he gave the orders. DJ disobeyed him frequently, but Pastor never found out.

            Like his father before him, DJ was the only person permitted to leave the compound—at least the only person the community knew about. The Founding Elders had taken leaves of absence four times a year, ostensibly to “pray on the mountain.” In reality, they went to the nearest city and fucked, drank, and gambled like sailors on shore leave.

            Now DJ and Pastor were the only remaining elders. Pastor himself was the only remaining Founding Elder. DJ had taken his father’s place after Waylon’s untimely demise. To this day no one suspected he’d killed his father.

            Because I’m damn good. He didn’t leave loose ends.

            At least none that he’d known about until a month before, when he’d learned that the woman he’d thought he’d killed thirteen years ago was still alive. He could have sworn Mercy had been dead when he’d left her bleeding in front of a bus station.

            Mercy Callahan. Gideon’s sister. Except that she’d been Mercy Burton when she’d lived in Eden. She’d been Ephraim’s wife until DJ had let her and her mother believe he was helping them escape. He’d wanted them to hope.

            He should have shot both women in the woods outside Eden, but he’d been young and stupid and focused on his cartoon-villain revenge plot. Mercy’s mother was definitely dead, and he’d brought her body back, but he’d been interrupted in the middle of killing Mercy. Someone had come and he’d run, leaving her behind. He didn’t see how she could have survived the two bullets he’d put into her body, but she had.

            Which left him a huge mess to clean up now. He’d told Pastor that he’d buried Mercy himself. If Pastor ever found out that she’d survived, DJ would lose everything.

            So he had loose ends to take care of. He’d almost done so a month ago, but a second shot had damaged the nerves in his left arm, leaving him unable to shoot and bleeding profusely. He didn’t know who’d fired the shot, but when he found out, the fucker was dead. He’d barely made it back to the compound alive. He’d barely managed to stay conscious long enough to tell Pastor they had to move. Immediately.

            Luckily Pastor trusted him implicitly. The old fool.

            DJ had only let him live this long because the old fool was also a crafty fucker. He’d memorized the account numbers and passwords to the online bank accounts that held Eden’s fifty million bucks.

            DJ needed those passwords before Pastor kicked the bucket. The old man was still in decent shape, though, goddammit. He was seventy-two, but his heart still beat soundly in his chest.

            Coleen glanced at Pastor, technically her husband. Coleen had gone through three husbands in the thirty years she’d been at Eden. Two had died of natural causes. One had been murdered.

            Not by my hand. Although DJ had longed to kill Ephraim’s brother, Edward, more times than he could count. No, the thanks for Edward’s death had to go to Gideon Reynolds. Gideon had claimed it was an accident, and DJ had believed it. At thirteen, Gideon had been a goody-goody. And strong enough even then to best Edward McPhearson in a fight.

            When DJ met Gideon again, he’d kill him slowly, making sure it hurt especially badly. Partly for denying DJ the satisfaction of killing McPhearson himself, but mostly for escaping. For having a life, when DJ had been stuck in this hellhole, serving a narcissist with a god complex.

            Even putting all of those reasons aside, Gideon would have had to die, simply for becoming a goddamn FBI agent who had apparently been searching for Eden since the day he escaped.