Trapped in an Iron Cage by His Outlaw Brother, an Ex-Con Tracker and His Wife Risk $2.5 Million in Underworld Gold and Their Lives through Explosive Hidden Traps and Paternity Betrayals
We scrambled through the gulch, the dry creek bed offering meager cover from the sporadic gunfire. Maeve stumbled once, a cry catching in her throat, but I pulled her onward. Eli’s men were fanning out, their shouts getting closer. We couldn’t outrun them forever in the open desert.
“Harlan Croft’s office,” I gasped, my lungs burning. “It’s the only place.”
Maeve nodded, her eyes wide and determined. She knew the plan. Croft’s office was on the edge of town, a squat adobe building that looked as unassuming as the man himself. It was a gamble, but our only real leverage lay there.
We burst from the gulch a few hundred yards from the town proper, sprinting across a patch of scrubland. A bullet chipped stone beside my head. I pushed Maeve ahead, drawing their fire.
The back door to Croft’s office was locked, but the wood was old and soft. I put my shoulder into it once, twice, and the frame splintered with a sharp crack. We tumbled inside, kicking up a plume of dust from the neglected floor.
Harlan Croft, a small, bald man with spectacles perched on his nose, jumped from his desk. He dropped a quill pen, its tip spattering black ink across a stack of land deeds. His face went ashen, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
“Silas Rudd?” he stammered, peering over his glasses. “But… Eli said you were…”
“Disposing of me, I imagine,” I finished, stepping fully into the room, Maeve right behind me. “Where’s the envelope, Harlan? The sealed one.”
Croft’s hands fluttered like startled birds. He cast a terrified glance at the broken door, then back at me. He was a coward, through and through, but his fear was a useful tool.
“What envelope?” he squeaked, trying to sound innocent.
“The one Eli ordered you to hide,” Maeve interjected, her voice surprisingly steady, “the one with the lab results.”
Croft’s eyes darted to a small, iron-bound strongbox tucked under his desk. His attempt at subtlety was pitiful.
I crossed the room in two strides, yanked the strongbox open, and rummaged through the clutter of old ledgers and yellowed documents. My fingers closed around a thick, cream-colored envelope, sealed with a wax impression of a lion rampant. It felt official, important. My heart gave a jolt.
The label read: “CONFIDENTIAL – Paternity Test Results, Eli Rudd.”
This was it. The proof. The secret Eli had killed to protect. I pulled it free, a cold, hard knot forming in my stomach.
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