Chapter 9 - The Broadcast
The Dodge Ram stopped thirty yards from the cabin cabin porch. The headlights remained on high beam, blinding the front windows.
Two men stepped out of the truck, armed with short-barreled shotguns. Marcus Vance stepped out from the passenger side, wearing a clean, dry waterproof jacket. His face was twisted with cold rage, stripped of the grief-stricken facade he had worn for the county deputies.
"Nora!" Marcus called out, his voice echoing off the timber. "I know you're in there! The game is over! The sheriff thinks you’ve been taken by a violent vagrant. Whatever happens to you in that cabin will be blamed on him!"
Silence answered from the cabin.
Marcus gestured to the two armed men. "Kick the door. Shoot the dog first. Shoot the man twice. Put her in the front seat—we’ll stage the body down at the river crossing where the current is fast."
The two men moved forward, boots crunching on wet gravel. The first man reached the porch, raised his boot, and kicked the latch.
The oak door flew open.
Before either man could raise his shotgun, a dark missile launched from the shadows beneath the porch. Ranger hit the lead man’s chest with all seventy pounds of muscle and momentum, driving him backward off the wooden steps into the mud. The man shrieked as Ranger’s jaws locked onto his forearm, crushing bone through the canvas jacket.
At the same instant, Cole dropped from the cabin roof like a falling stone.
He landed directly behind the second gunman. Cole’s right palm struck upward under the man’s chin in a vicious open-hand palm strike that snapped his head back, followed by a sweeping low kick that took his legs out. The shotgun flew from the man’s hands. Before he hit the dirt, Cole drove a knee into his solar plexus, knocking the air from his lungs in an explosive gasp.
Marcus froze, his hand halfway to the pistol tucked in his waistband.
"Don't," Cole’s voice cut through the damp air like a blade.
Marcus stared at the former SEAL standing in the glare of his own headlights. Cole’s face was smeared with mud and rain, his eyes cold, lethal, and completely steady as he leveled the man’s own dropped shotgun directly at Marcus’s chest.
"Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?" Marcus stammered, backing toward his truck. "I have millions. I can pay you—whatever you want, five hundred thousand, a million, cash—just walk away! Tell them you found her dead!"
A sharp, metallic click broke the silence from the cabin doorway.
Marcus looked up.
Nora was sitting on the wooden floor just inside the threshold, propped up against the doorframe. In her hands, steady and unwavering, was Cole’s Glock 19. It was aimed directly at Marcus’s head.
"Julian never touched drugs, Marcus," Nora said, her voice clear, hard, and resonant in the night.
Marcus went pale. "Nora... baby, listen to me—"
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"The audit is already on a cloud server, Marcus," she continued, her finger tightening on the trigger. "My attorney received an automated delivery three hours ago when I didn't check in at midnight. Every transaction. Every offshore shell company. Every forged signature."
Marcus’s jaw dropped. The carefully constructed web of lies had unraveled in a single instant.
