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The last build site right at the top of the hill. Naturally, it would be the hardest one for Hanna to reach undetected and, of course, it was the biggest of them all, visible at a distance from the bright blue tarps that wrapped around open rooms. It was more of a mansion than a classic mountain cabin, and Hanna swallowed hard.

“For Grace.”

Then she began the somewhat painstaking climb up the back side of the mountain, putting one foot in front of the other as she searched for notches in the dirt and hand holds in the small trees that had grown back after the fire. The house loomed above her, but it felt like she was never getting any closer, and the slow movement only gave her more time to think, more time to consider all that had happened in the past days.

She had pissed off the wrong people, that much was certain. She and Ralston had been at odds for generations now, his father and her own, and eventually Hanna’s own vendetta against Junior. Ralston III knew she didn’t approve of the way he ran his flock, how people seemed to disappear into some black hole of his church, how he extracted money and support with a scalpel from his followers, and he’d been all too clear about telling her to back off.

That had come in the form of blowing up her childhood home.

As for Iverson, their paths hadn’t crossed nearly as much until Grace had finally come to Hanna for help, and Hanna had started digging into hospital records and neighbor complaints and gotten a rather full picture of how men in charge seemed to love bullying.

On top of all that, she’d discovered a leak somewhere in her department, one that had led to Grace being kidnapped and no doubt other problems Hanna would uncover when this was all over.

And then there was…

Her guys. The two men who had come because she’d needed help, but who had offered so very much more than protection. Ash gave her an outlet, a place to exist where she wasn’t too fiery, too angry, too much. Nicco grounded her, sharing her overwhelm and her hurt, giving her strength to keep putting one step in front of the other.

Hanna reached for a sapling, but the branch snapped off in her hand, and she felt a sudden urge to cry. It wasn’t her normal emotional response. She was prone to spitting fire, but the events of the last few days were catching up with her, as was the sense that she could deny it to Tori, hell, she could deny it to Ash and Nic, but she couldn’t deny it to herself, not in this moment, not when she stood on top of the world and felt the sun on her face, and thought about how much they had changed her life for the better.

“I love them.”

Hanna’s foot slipped, and she caught herself before sliding down the small incline. It should have felt like a revelation, but in truth, it felt like the last piece of the puzzle falling into place. Yes, they had erotic, charged chemistry between them, but even though they’d pretended that first night that it was simply a distraction from the horror, Hanna knew the truth. The three of them together were undeniable, unignorable, some predestined thing that simply couldn’t be pretended away.

She didn’t know what that looked like for the future. Hell, Hanna didn’t even know what her tomorrow looked like. Life for all three of them was volatile and complex, and not one of them was unfamiliar with hurt and loss.

But even if they had to walk away from each other, even if there was no future for any of them, at least Hanna knew she would have kept them safe. She was a target for trouble, as it turned out, and she’d been poking angry bears for a long, long time. Hanna had no doubt that Iverson and Ralston would go after the people she cared about just to get to her. After all, they needed Grace alive and that hadn’t stopped them from slicing off her finger and sending it in a box.

Hanna locked her foot into the hard dirt, and it crumbled slightly under her boot. With a final heave, she pulled herself up the last round of the mountain side, until she was flat on her stomach, staring at the back of the enormous, half-built house.

She pushed to her feet, aware that if she waited too long, she’d lose her nerve, and pulled out her service weapon, the metal cool and familiar in her hand. Time was of the essence, but so was stealth. No doubt Iverson had thought himself smart by hiding way up in the mountains, but he’d still likely have guards and security cameras.

Maybe the guys were right. Maybe we should have come in with a plan.

Hanna shook her head. The very best thing she could do for them was to keep them at a distance.

She edged around the back of the house, the blue tarps obscuring her vision of the inside, and made notes of all she saw. There were several sets of tire prints, which meant he had a crew coming and going, and at least two of them were single tire—motorcycles from the Iron Daggers, Hanna was sure. If she had her kit and her team and this was an official mission, she’d take those prints for comparison, but she didn’t and it wasn’t. It was a rescue mission in the dark, holding onto hope with two white-knuckled hands.

The mountain top was eerily quiet, and her senses weren’t improved any by the slow setting of the sun. In the purple twilight overhead, it somehow felt darker than the middle of the night, and she stepped with care, aware that something or someone could be lurking in just about every shadow.

Tuned in as she was, Hanna practically jumped when a soft sob rent the air. She turned quickly to the sound, and realized it was coming from a finished garage toward the east side of the compound. In the near dark it was difficult to see, but she still caught sight of an unusual trail in the dirt leading to the garage. A trail that made it look like someone had been dragged.

Hanna’s heart caught in her throat. “Grace…”

Just as she was about to race toward the small building, she felt something cold and hard at the small of her back.

And then her heart dropped from her throat to the dirty, dusty ground below.

“Hand it over, Cop.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Okay, there’s only one way up the mountain by main road, but there is a service road along the eastern corridor,” Jinx explained quickly. “You can split into teams and take both sides, give you a better advantage, especially if he tries to flee, with or without Grace.”

“I can take Team A. Ash, you’re Team B,” Nicco said.

Ash looked at him, and realized that the time had come, the fork in the road split, leading them down one of two paths, and it was up to him to choose which path that was going to be.

Ash turned to Jinx. “Finish up the plan and we’ll follow your lead. Captain and I need to talk.”