Taron bends to help lift him, and that’s when I see her. Green eyes shining like cat in the darkness.
“No!” I shout as she rushes forward, screaming, just in time for Taron to whip around and see the raised machete in her hand.
Light flashes off the silver blade, the blast of Taron’s pistol deafens us in the small space, and she drops like a stone, a bloody splatter like a megaphone fanning out on the floor behind her small body. Long, caramel hair fans around her head, and she looks seventeen.
“God, no.” He lets out a pained groan as the small gun falls to the floor.
For a moment, we’re unable to move, unable to look away from the girl lying dead at our feet. My eyes heat, but I squeeze them shut briefly, clenching my teeth against the emotion. Marley mumbles incoherent words. He’s barely conscious, beaten almost beyond recognition. I can’t even tell if he recognizes us. The machete is at his feet, beside the dead girl.
She would have slashed them both if Taron hadn’t done what he did.
Combat leaves no room for second-guessing. Hesitation is how you end up dead, cut in half by a teenager you’d otherwise overlook. A girl who never should have been here. Bastards using children to fight their battles.
“Get him out of here.” My voice is a gruff order. When Taron doesn’t move, I raise the volume. “I said GO!”
He struggles to lift Marley over his shoulder, and Sawyer steps forward to help him. I’m the last one to leave the hut, giving it a final sweep before I turn, in time to see Taron hit the ground and then cry out in pain.
“Mother—” He rolls to his side, blood soaking his lower back from where he landed on a broken sapling.
“Patton, stop!” Sawyer yells, and I see the trip wire.
How we missed it coming in is anybody’s guess. Sawyer hoists Marley onto his shoulders. He’s strong as an ox from working on his family’s peach farm back home. I throw my rifle over my shoulder and lean down, grabbing Taron’s arm.
“Can you walk?”
His face is scrunched in agony, but he manages to nod. “Get us out of here.”
My jaw is tight, my brow set, and I force the determination we need to finish this rescue mission. Our ATV is down the hill, hidden in the brush, and we follow Sawyer, Taron leaning heavily on me.
His blood soaks through his clothes onto mine, dripping down to his pants. This injury might send him home, and Marley’s worse. We’re all worse on the inside. We saved our man, but we’re all scarred by what we left behind.
It’s too late to change it. We’ll deal with the scars later.
When the fighting stops.
1
Raquel
Present Day
A hot breeze whips through the streets of downtown Nashville, sweeping my light brown hair off my shoulders and throwing my black blazer open. I catch it, holding my bag and clutching my phone to my ear, hanging on my sister Renée’s words like the voice of God.
“Make friends with Sandra. She’s a good ally.” Renée is encouraging, but my stomach is in knots. “Don’t ask too many questions. If something doesn’t make sense, wait and ask her later.”
“I can’t ask questions on my first day?” The orange hand appears at the crosswalk, and I take the opportunity to straighten my blouse. “What kind of mind reader do they think I am?”
“Trust me, Patton Fletcher doesn’t have time to teach you how to do your job.” She sounds like she might be quoting him.
“I’ve never even met Patton Fletcher.”
“Who hired you? Taron? He’s the only one who could get away with something like that.”
“Ah, yeah.” The walk sign appears, and I hustle across the four-lane street. “I interviewed with Taron Rhodes and Jerry Buckingham.”
“Hmm…” Her skepticism fans my nerves.
“What?”
“You’ll really have to be on your toes, then. If he didn’t pick you, he’ll be looking to get rid of you.”
“Why?” Panic spreads into my chest.
“It’s just how he is. He likes to be in control.”
“So what do I do? You worked here.” I push through the glass doors of Fletcher International, Inc., fresh out of Vanderbilt’s Owen Grad School with a shiny new MBA.
Just like my sister, I graduated in the Top Ten in my class, and as such, I landed interviews with the top firms in the city. I wanted to go to Chicago or Dallas, but my advisor said Fletcher was a great starting point, a real feather in my cap if I could get a good recommendation. I assume this Patton Fletcher knows every CEO in the country… or his dad did.
When I searched Fletcher International, I found pages of articles on George Fletcher, not so much on his son.
“Don’t let him push you around.” Her voice turns thoughtful. “I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose or if it’s just his personality…”
“How do I do that? He’s the boss.”
I wonder if she might tell me what happened to her here. My thoughts flicker back to when Renée started as an accounting intern at FII. She seemed to be doing great, one of Nashville Magazine’s “Thirty under Thirty” rising stars in local business.
She passed the CPA exam on her first try… Then a year later, she dropped off the grid.
She stopped answering her phone, and when I called the office, a woman said she didn’t work here anymore. I had to leave campus in the middle of exams, catch a city bus across town to her low-rent apartment in East Nashville, where it looked like she hadn’t left her bed for days.
She wouldn’t tell me what happened—she only said she wasn’t doing it anymore. “It” meant anything having to do with her accounting degree.
That spring break, I ditched my plans to spend the week in South Walton to help her move back to Savannah, to our parents’ tiny home near the watchful eye of Ms. Hazel Wakefield, their old neighbor.
Now she helps run Ms. Hazel’s gift shop on Tybee Island and pays for rent by cleaning the old woman’s house, running her errands, and cooking their meals. She doesn’t have much choice since she walked away from her career with nothing but a crushing load of student loan debt.
“You want my advice on Patton Fletcher?” She huffs a laugh like it will take all day. “Don’t mention his dad. It pisses him off.”
My brow furrows. “Got it. Anything else?” I’m on the elevator rising too fast. Or she’s talking too slowly.
“Never wear all black. He hates that.”
“Shit.” I glance down at my black slacks and matching black blazer. “I’ll have to buy a scarf at lunch.”
“Nope, he hates scarves even more.”
“What’s his problem?” My lips tighten, and my urge to fight starts to rise.
It’s how I got my nickname, Rocky. My dad started it because even as a little girl, I never backed down from a bully.
“Remember when we were kids, and you liked to say ‘You’re not the boss of me’?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t ever say that to Patton Fletcher.” I’m about to speak, when she adds conspiratorially. “But never stop saying it in your head. I think he secretly likes it.”