Oh God.
He fished his handkerchief from his pocket and used it to try the front door handle. Whoever had dumped the car hadn’t bothered locking it. He took another quick glance, then popped the trunk.
Gabe hurried around to the back of the car and took a deep breath, then lifted the trunk lid, having a pretty damned good idea what he’d find. And yet his stomach still churned when he saw the cabbie’s body, half his head blown off from a gunshot. Shit.
He swallowed and looked about. No sign of Elle.
Gabe ran back to his Tahoe, jumped inside, and pulled onto the road before calling in the location of the cab and the death of the cab driver to dispatch. Then, not wanting to get yet another lecture from his brother Tom, he called Joe instead.
“Joey,” Gabe ground out the second his brother answered, “the cabbie that picked up Elle is dead. He’s got her, Joe. That motherfucker has Elle.”
“Ah, shit,” Joe muttered. “We’re on our way, Gabe. Just hang tight. Tom and I are on the way. And we were able to catch Kyle before he was too far down to the road. We got your back, Bro.”
Gabe hung up and, this time, attached his phone to his hip, gradually decreasing his speed as he drew close to the Monroe farm. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, getting his emotions under control. He wasn’t going to be any use to Elle if he couldn’t keep his shit together.
He needed to figure out a game plan. Waiting the fifteen or so minutes it would take for his brothers to catch up could mean the difference in whether Elle lived or died. He couldn’t just come up the driveway and knock on the front door. He most likely wouldn’t even make it to the porch before Monroe put a bullet in him.
Before he reached the farm, he pulled off onto a small access road used to drive between the fields and went just far enough to obscure the Tahoe from the road but not to tip off anyone at the house that a vehicle was approaching.
Then he slipped out of the SUV and texted his brothers: Doing recon. Will approach with caution.
He wasn’t surprised when he immediately got a message back from Tom. WTF? Stay put.
Gabe took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then silenced his phone and his radio. “Sorry, Tommy. See you soon, Bro.”
Chapter 24
“Go check the perimeter,” Jeb said, gesturing to his brother James.
His younger brother gave him a sharp nod and gestured to their brother Dave. “Comin’?”
Dave looked to Jeb for permission. “Want me to go with him or stay here and keep watch over these?” He gestured to Jeb’s traitorous family.
They’d all betrayed him in some way. Even his youngest boy had chosen his mother in the end. But Jeb’s brothers were loyal. He knew that for a fact. That’s exactly how he knew that Gabe Dawson wouldn’t come looking for his whore without bringing his own kin along.
“‘For the great day of their wrath has come,’” Jeb murmured. Then he turned away from the window and nodded to Dave. “Go on. I’ll be fine here.”
He continued to watch from the window until his brothers split up to walk separate paths, then went to sit in the chair across from the whore. She hadn’t said a word since he’d brought her back to the house after she’d tried to escape. Now that her hands and feet were tied, she’d just sat there on the sofa, watching him with narrowed eyes.
Well, she could glare all she wanted. Soon he’d be rid of her. He’d planned to give her to his boy Jeremy to enjoy, but Jeremy seemed to have lost the taste for their cause. He’d soon fix that, though. He wouldn’t force the boy to take a whore, but he would force him to put a bullet in one.
He leaned back to give her an appraising look. She had some fight in her, he had to give her that. It was too bad for her that she chose to serve the tyrants. Now she would pay the price.
“It won’t be long now,” he assured her. “We’ll give everyone a little time to get here, but if they don’t show soon, I’ve got a little message planned. One of the brothers has a pretty little schoolteacher for a whore, as I recall. Pregnant too. Her death would be a tragic loss to the Dawson family, wouldn’t you say?”
He chuckled when the whore’s eyes went wide in alarm.
“You’re a sick bastard,” she spat at him, her face twisting in disgust. “If you hurt one hair on Sadie’s hair, I swear—”
A sudden commotion outside brought Jeb to his feet, and he missed whatever meaningless threat the whore was spewing at him. He pulled back the curtains to peer outside but didn’t see the source of the noise. He muttered a curse, stormed over to his son, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling him to his feet.
“You keep watch of them,” he ordered. “Don’t let that whore try to sweet-talk you again, boy. You hear me?”