Midnight Sins (6 page)

And Rafe couldn’t get the memory of it out of his

head. The sight of that smile, so filled with love as she

whispered Tye had come for her. It sent a chill up his

spine, even now. The sense that she had only been

waiting, always been watching for him to come for her

had swept over him.

Jaymi had made Rafe swear he would protect

Cami. She was sick, alone in Jaymi’s apartment,

according to Jaymi’s friend and neighbor. Cami cried

continually. She was begging for Jaymi, and Cami’s

aunt and uncle were considering having her

hospitalized due to the severity of the bronchitis.

Rafe could still hear Ryan screaming about a

vagrant who had been found with Crowe’s knife in his

side, his pants undone, and Jaymi’s blood on him.

Ryan was yelling furiously about taking his own

samples to a Denver lawyer and having them

analyzed. He was demanding the sheriff release his

nephews now, by God, before he sued the county for

an illegal arrest. “That fucking security tape is all you

dumb shits need,” he raged. “Now let them the hell out

now.”

Rafe shook his head.

He and his cousins knew Ryan Calvert was a

Callahan, but no one else had, until now. Their

grandparents had given Ryan up for adoption, when

they couldn’t afford to feed their children any longer,

long before Samuel, Benjamin, and David had really

been old enough to understand their baby brother was

gone. Rafe didn’t know the whole story; he’d only just

learned that the recruiter who had come to Sweetrock

was actually the youngest Callahan son. Ryan’s

search for his birth family had spanned more than ten

years. His commitment to his nephews only grew

stronger with the knowledge that his parents, as well

as his brothers, were gone.

When his brothers returned, it was learned the

child their parents had had so late in life, was dead, or

so they believed, and their ranch supposedly sold and

split between the Corbins, Raffertys, and Robertses.

Their entire lives had been torn apart and all anyone

cared about was convincing them to leave Corbin

County and accept the losses.

And now that Callahan son was back and raising

hell.

Ryan was screaming something about DNA,

vagrants, serial murders, and alibis, and Rafe was

wondering why he gave a damn.

Standing up, Rafe moved to the door, his hands

shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his gaze focused

on the night Jaymi died rather than at the stone wall

across from him.

How was Cami? He had promised Jaymi he

would look after her.

But how was he supposed to take care of her?

He’d promised, but he had signed up for the Marines

last week. He, Logan, and Crowe. They’d had enough

of Corbin County for a while, they’d decided. Like

their fathers before them, they thought the military

seemed the best option.

For the same reason, perhaps. Because they

were tired of the bullshit.

And it all went back to the three families who

ruled Corbin County like their own personal little

fiefdom.

Generations before, James Randal Callahan had

acquired eight hundred acres of prime ranch land

from the government as had his three partners James

Corbin the First, Andrew Roberts, and Jason Rafferty.

At the time, the four men had been the best of

friends as well as business partners. They had

acquired the land they needed, the cattle and the

horses, then they’d found wives.

They’d settled the land tucked between the rising

mountains and proceeded to build a dynasty. But

somewhere in those first years, something had

happened to change those friendships and the wealth

that first James Randal Callahan had brought with

him. While the others had thrived, the Callahan family

had slowly begun to wither away until Rafe’s

grandfather had nearly died of some lung infection.

Hospitalized, weak and fighting for his life, he

hadn’t even been aware that the world believed his

youngest son was dead. In fact, his wife, Eileen

Callahan had contacted acquaintances that she had

known were desperate for a child. She’d sold her

baby for the money needed to save the rest of her

family and the ranch that amounted to everything they

possessed.

Until the morning of their deaths, they had been

worth a fortune. For some reason, that morning they

had withdrawn every cent they had at the bank, and

accepted a paltry couple of hundred thousand for a

ranch that was worth three times as much in stock

alone.

That night, they had been racing toward

Colorado Springs along the curving mountain road

with its sheer drops and spectacular cliffs. Somehow,

JR Callahan, the great-great-grandson of James

Randal Callahan, had lost control of the truck and

plunged down one of those cliffs.

Their vehicle had exploded on impact with such

force that the explosion had been heard across the

mountains. It was the next day, though, before anyone

had seen the faint tendrils of smoke rising from the

canyon below.

And how strange that years later, their three sons

and the women they had married had died in the

same manner when their SUV had gone over a cliff as

they drove from Denver. The coincidence was simply

too great. The deaths too similar.

“Ryan’s stopped blasting their eardrums,” Logan

stated quietly as he and Crowe stood up from the cots

they had been sitting on.

When the metal doors at the other end of the cell

area opened, Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Callahan Calvert, of

the Boston, Massachusetts, Calverts, strode in,

followed by two military police personnel and the

lawyer he’d brought from Denver the day before.

Ryan was scowling. His strong, weathered face

was stone hard, his blue eyes like chips of ice, as he

followed the sheriff, Randal Tobias, to the cell Rafe

and his cousins had been confined in.

The fact that Ryan wasn’t happy was only

eclipsed by the fact that Sheriff Tobias was glaring at

the cousins with pure, vicious hatred.

“The little bastards fucking well better keep their

asses in the county.” He shoved the key in each cell

door, twisted it furiously, and slammed the iron doors

open. “Fuck up and I’ll put a bullet in your heads

myself.”

Rafe sneered. “Only if the barons give you

permission,” he drawled, using the mocking nickname

given to the patriarchs of the three families.

In the next second, Tobias buried his fist in

Rafe’s ribs, stealing Rafe’s breath for a second and

shoving him into the metal bars. Fury surged through

Rafe in the next instant, pounding through his veins

and throwing him forward after the sheriff, when

Logan, Crowe, and Ryan suddenly grabbed him.

“Let it go, son,” Ryan snarled in his ear. “You

should have kept your mouth shut or prepared for it.”

He was right. Rafe knew he was right. But still,

Rafe wanted to take the bastard apart with his bare

hands.

The sheriff sneered back at him.

Funny, Rafe thought distantly, the sheriff’s son,

Archer, seemed to have a streak of honor and had

been one of the few people in the county to come

forward and object to the treatment Rafe and his

cousins had suffered in the past few days. That was

one of the reasons Tobias was so furious now.

Having his son defend the three cousins couldn’t have

gone over well with the barons who told Tobias when

to breathe, when to fuck, and when to piss.

Rafe let his lip curl in the sheriff’s direction.

“That’s okay, sir,” Rafe drawled. “You’re right: I should

have been prepared. But I think the sheriff is very well

aware of the price he’s paying for the orders he

follows.”

He’d lost his son. Archer Tobias had stood in his

father’s face the day before and told the other man he

couldn’t believe they were related and that he prayed

stupidity wasn’t hereditary.

“You little fucker,” Tobias snarled. “You’ll be back.

When you do Archer will see you for the murdering

fuck you are.”

Rafe shook his head. “Naw, he’ll see you and the

barons for the manipulative monsters you are. That’s

too bad, too, because I think Archer is tired of

defending your eagerness to jump when they tell you

to jump.”

“Get him out of here, Calvert,” the sheriff ordered.

“Before I save the county the money to prosecute him

and shoot him myself.”

Two military police laid their hands purposely on

the butts of their weapons. The action didn’t go

unnoticed.

“Let’s go,” Ryan ordered. “You all have a meeting

with your lawyer, then you’re going to settle in

somewhere until we can take care of this.”

“I have to take care of something else,” Rafe

stated as they headed for the door.

“The hell you do,” Ryan growled as he followed

close behind Rafe. “Don’t argue with me, Rafe. Not

here.” Rafe waited until they were outside. Turning back

to his uncle, Rafe stared the other man in the eye,

determination tightening his body and burning through

his veins. “I promised Jaymi.” His fists clenched at the

thought of what he had to do. “I’ll meet you wherever

you need me to, but I have to take care of something

first.”

“And what the hell could be more important than

your freedom?” Ryan snarled as he gripped Rafe’s

arm and pulled him around again.

“A promise,” Rafe snapped as he jerked his arm

back. “And I don’t break my fucking promises.”

Cami was sick; Jack and Archer both had told

Rafe she was alone at Jaymi’s apartment, and she

hadn’t gotten her medicine. It was confiscated as

evidence when it was found outside the pharmacy,

and Rafe didn’t know if anyone had even cared to

check on her.

He’d never imagined his life could come to this.

At twenty, he thought he had the world by the tail, and

despite the problems he and his cousins had faced in

Corbin County, he’d believed it would all right itself in

the end.

He couldn’t have imagine this could happen, not

even in his worst nightmares.

That Jaymi could die in his arms. That he could

have been arrested for her murder when he’d done

everything he could to save her.

And as he stepped out into the bright summer

light to the sight of nearly two dozen of Sweetrock’s

residents glaring at him in accusation, he thought that

perhaps he should have expected it.