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
The thud of heavy boots on the porch outside Croft’s office made us all freeze. Eli’s men.
“Croft! Open up!” Boyd Kincaid’s voice boomed. Boyd, Eli’s chief enforcer, a man whose loyalty was supposed to be absolute.
Harlan Croft looked ready to faint. “They’ll kill me! They’ll kill us all!”
“Not if you help us,” I said, holding up the sealed envelope. “Not if we give them something bigger to worry about.”
Maeve went to the broken door, her hand hovering over the latch. “What do we do?”
“Let them in,” I instructed, my mind racing. “But keep them talking.”
She nodded, then twisted the latch. The door swung inward, revealing Boyd Kincaid and two of Eli’s other men. Boyd, a burly man with a weathered face and eyes that had seen too much, stopped dead when he saw me. His hand instinctively went to the pistol on his hip.
“Silas? You’re supposed to be in the ground,” Boyd growled, his gaze sweeping over the overturned chairs and the open strongbox.
“A slight miscalculation on Eli’s part,” I replied, stepping forward, the envelope held prominently in my hand. “Just like his family history.”
Boyd’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“This,” I said, tearing open the wax seal. I pulled out a lab-certified DNA report, its pages filled with official-looking jargon. I quickly scanned the key findings, my blood running cold. “This report proves that Eli’s alleged son, the one he parades around as his heir, isn’t his.”
Boyd scoffed. “Eli’s son is Eli’s son. You’re just trying to twist things.”
“No,” I countered, my voice low and steady. “This report states with 99.9% certainty that the boy is the biological grandson of Don Arturo Alvarez.”
Boyd froze. His eyes widened, a flicker of something raw and dangerous entering them. Don Alvarez was the regional boss of the criminal council, Eli’s supposed ally, but also a man whose bloodline was fiercely guarded.
“Eli murdered your family, didn’t he, Boyd?” I pressed, watching his face closely. “Your sister and her husband, those ‘accidents’ out on the old dirt road? That was Eli covering his tracks. He needed his false heir, and he couldn’t have anyone questioning the boy’s parentage, especially not if he was showing Alvarez’s traits.”
The air went out of Boyd. The two men behind him shifted uneasily, sensing the change in their leader. Boyd’s hand dropped from his pistol. His face was a mask of shock, then fury. He reached out and snatched the report from my hand, his eyes devouring the words on the page.
His breath hitched. A guttural sound escaped his throat, a mix of disbelief and agonizing realization. The man who had been his boss, his brother-in-arms for decades, had murdered his own kin to keep a dark secret.
Boyd crumpled the report in his fist. His eyes, now burning with a cold, terrifying rage, lifted to mine.
“What do you want, Silas?” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. “What do you want to do to him?”
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