Their Mountain Captive by Kayla Wren
17
Alec
Angelo was never my focus. When I was an agent working the Marino case, I was assigned to Dante, and that’s who I stuck with. The other Marinos came up, of course—it was impossible for them not to. But even then, Dante was like the sun. He blinded me to everyone else.
Sitting in a stolen truck beside Dante’s little brother… I see the resemblance.
Not that I’d ever tell Dante that. But Angelo has the same wavy dark hair, the same proud chin—even the same designer stubble out here in the mountains. He’s dressed in standard hiker clothes, same as Dante, but he also wears them with a kind of revolted defiance.
They’re alike. It’s unsettling, when Angelo’s gun is digging into my ribs.
“Go carefully, brother.” Angelo sits back, so relaxed as Dante drives. Our truck purrs up the mountain path, swinging smoothly around each bend. “I have such a delicate trigger finger.”
Dante says nothing. He’s barely spoken since his brother called. And for the first time in several years, I can’t read him. He’s retreated behind his walls.
“Is this your bodyguard?” Angelo turns to me with a sneer. “There must be slim pickings out here.”
We’re both silent. The engine growls as we lurch up a steep section of road, and Angelo huffs.
“Fine. You’ll talk eventually, brother.”
This man has been such a specter for Dante. The only Marino who refused to believe his faked death. He’s been relentless, scouring the globe for his big brother, coming close more than a few times. And yet, now that we’re sitting beside him…
I thought he would be taller.
It’s a stress response—my lack of panic. I realize that. This is years of FBI training kicking in, my brain reverting to noting the surroundings and the mental state of my companions. But beneath my shirt, my heart is pounding.
The cabin. He’s forcing us back to the cabin, but why? Surely if he wanted to kill us or simply to take Dante home, he needn’t drag us all the way back up the mountainside. This is a risk—a chance for him to lose control—and yet Angelo needs this.
Why?
“Turn here. Take the back road.”
So he knows all the routes to the cabin. That’s not good. I clench my jaw, staring out of the smudged window as the truck bounces and lurches beneath us. Every time we’re knocked around, our legs and sides jostling, that gun prods a different part of my torso.
It’s close range. A powerful gun.
I don’t like my chances if it goes off.
“Easy,” I murmur to Dante when he starts to drive more wildly, wrenching the truck around corners. He blows out a breath but slows, his movements calming.
Angelo peers at me, blatant interest in his amber eyes.
“What do you want?” Dante grits out at last. Angelo turns away from me, and I suspect that’s why Dante finally found his voice. “Why are you here, Angelo?”
Something like hurt flashes across his brother’s face. But then the cold, sneering mask settles back in, and he snarls, “Revenge. What else, brother?”
He means it rhetorically, but the question hangs in the air between us. Especially when Angelo jabs me harder with the gun—me, not Dante. He’s barely pointed it at his brother at all. And his eyes keep darting to the bandages wrapped around Dante’s arm, a red spot only now bleeding through the fabric.
Interesting.
The truck lurches between a pockmarked boulder and a listing pine tree. We round the dirt path, Dante’s cabin flashing into view between the trees, and I send out silent thanks for the hundredth time that Roxy’s not here. That we got her to safety.
Dante wastes no time pulling up to the cabin. He’s impatient on a good day, and right now the strain is ticking in his temples.
He wants to get this over with.
“Home, sweet home.” Dante shoves the truck door open, not bothering to wait for instruction. I wince, the gun digging deeper between my ribs, but then Angelo leans over me and pushes the passenger side open too.
“Out you hop, Dante’s friend.”
I don’t tell him my name. I’m certain he already knows.
Broken glass crunches under our boots as we stride across the deck. The door hangs open—it’s not like we locked up—and there are signs of wildlife when Dante nudges the door open.
Furniture is toppled. Pine needles coat the floorboards. The rug is rucked up at one corner, and there’s a mound of something that looks suspiciously like animal bones under the desk.
Roxy’s camera sits in pieces beside the computer. A pang ripples through my chest.
“Cozy.” Angelo strolls past, nudging my abandoned duffel bag with his boot. He turns and raises an eyebrow at his brother. “Five star accommodations.”
Dante shrugs. Says nothing. And this silence is worse than goading; it makes Angelo bristle up, anger flushing his cheeks.
“You left for this?” he says again, waving the gun around. “For a damp, stupid cabin on this godforsaken mountain?”
“Not for the cabin.” Dante rolls his eyes. He’s playing things down, still, but he’s inching closer, too. Putting himself between me and that gun. “For the mountain fashion.”
Angelo snorts, and for a moment there’s this kinship between them. A shared joke; a mutual hatred for flannel. But then Angelo’s face shutters, and the moment is gone.
“You shouldn’t have left. You shouldn’t have left me there.” Dante frowns, a sliver of emotion peeking through his mask, but Angelo keeps speaking. “Now I have to remind you about family. About what loyalty means.”
My lungs seize as the gun swings back around to me, freezing me in place where I’d been creeping toward the log burner. To the iron poker leaned up on its tip.
“Stop it,” Angelo spits. “You cannot stand still? Fine. As you wish.” He jerks his gun across the room. “Get on the bed and hold onto the frame.”
* * *“I’ve got deja vu.” Dante gives me the ghost of a smile as he ties my wrists to the bed frame. Angelo stands behind him, the gun trained on us both, but he doesn’t see the relief in Dante’s eyes.
He’s happy to do this. The asshole wants me out of the picture. If he could, he’d probably have forced me away at gunpoint himself.
“What was that? What did you say?” Angelo comes closer, scowling. “Stop whispering. Or I’ll gag him, too.”
Dante winks at me, the motion so slight I almost miss it, and it would be funny if panic weren’t gnawing at my gut. He’s tying me properly, the idiot. Tight enough to hold me here, tight enough that I can’t help him, and god. If we get through this, we will have some fucking words.
“You’re a little too good at that, brother.”
It’s something Dante would say. For the hundredth time, their similarities knock me off kilter.
“I had some recent practice.”
“The girl?”
Dante goes quiet. He won’t talk about Roxy. He tightens the last rope, the bed frame rattling when I tug it, then he steps back to stand beside Angelo. They could be twins in the gloom of the cabin. The wind whistles outside on the porch, banging the door against the frame, and I lay stretched out on the lumpy mattress, heart thudding.
“What now?” Dante sounds exhausted already. When was the last time he slept? The last good meal he had? The last time he sat calmly, without fear prickling the back of his mind?
Angelo hums, like he’s thinking about it. Taking this moment by moment, and not arranging us to his exact specifications.
“It’s nice out. Let’s take a walk.”
It’s just like old times, I think I hear him murmur, then their boot steps echo across the deck and the door swings shut behind them. I glare at the ceiling, my wrists chafing against the ropes as I grit my teeth and try to work them loose.
That asshole. He tied me. He really tied me. I growl, yanking the bed frame so hard it bounces off the wall.
My ragged breaths fill the cabin when I finally stop fighting. Just for a second, until my muscles unlock. Twenty minutes could have passed, or ten, or an hour. I don’t know. I strain to listen, but there are no voices outside the cabin. Nothing but the moaning wind and whisper of pine needles skittering over the floorboards.
They’re gone.
Dante’s gone.