johnny had instigated every beating, every humiliation, every vicious attack dayle mackay had ever made against natches. he had carried rumors to his father, and in many cases, proof of natches's supposed crimes.

sharing his women. drinking too young. the instances were too many to name and too dangerous to remember right now.

his shoulder ached like hell as he stood amid the thick branches of the pine tree, his rifle resting on one thickly needled tree branch as he bent to keep johnny in sight.

the bullet that had taken him out of the marines hadn't completely taken him out of the game.

once an assassin, always an assassin. once a man deliberately set his sights on another man and pulled the trigger, then it was a part of him forever. he might walk away from it, but he could never escape it.

natches hadn't wanted to walk away or to escape. he just hadn't had any other choice.

"natches, we're moving into position." dawg's voice came across the receiver in his ear.

"bedsford should be driving into the cabin yard any second."

natches lifted his gaze from the gun sights and stared down the road.

"in sight." the van was pulling up the dirt track, bouncing over the ruts as the driver obviously took her time.

crista was driving. natches's gut clenched at the fear she must be feeling. she was depending on them to protect her, trusting dawg and him to make certain nothing happened to her.

"natches." dawg said his name, nothing more, but he understood the message in it. the plea that natches keep her safe, no matter the cost.

"i have her covered, bro," he said quietly. "no fears."

"natches, we need those two alive," cranston repeated. "we need them all alive. don't you pull any shit on me."

the corners of natches's lips kicked up in amusement. it was a good thing he liked cranston.

"do your job; i'll do mine," he said softly. "crista is priority. period."

cranston cursed, but natches could have sworn he heard dawg's breath of relief.

he'd die for dawg and rowdy. without them, he wouldn't have survived past his teens. he was irked at the direction their lives had taken; at times, he was damned pissed off over it. but he understood it. rowdy especially. rowdy had never known the darkness that natches and dawg had lived through.

and even dawg, who had known the pain but not the pure evil that natches had experienced.

kelly and crista had healed rowdy and dawg. he couldn't blame the two women for not seeing the loneliness it had caused in natches.

loneliness doesn't kill, though. it aches, it taunts, but it doesn't kill. he could survive loneliness.

"van in sight." natches came to attention as the white panel van drove into the cabin's yard.

he wrapped the strap of his rifle around one hand, held it steady against the branch, and caressed the trigger with the other. he'd have to take bedsford out first, then johnny, if it came to killing.

he would protect crista. rowdy and dawg had protected him, saved him. he could do no less for them now.

crista pulled the van to a stop beside alex's car and stared at the vintage '67 navy blue camaro. she stared at the car and would have winced at the fury alex was going to experience if he ever learned his baby made it out of the garage he kept it locked in.

he was going to explode all over johnny grace with a force that would strip the man's flesh from his bones and make him pray for forgiveness.

if johnny managed to live past dawg, that was.

"you know, johnny just signed both your death warrants with that car, right?" she asked as bedsford straightened behind her. "alex will hunt you to bell and back."

"he'll have to find us first." the side panel door opened, and he turned back to her with a wave of the gun. "come on, lady. let's get this over with so we can get the hell out of your fine little county."

crista moved stiffly from the driver's seat, her gaze on the gun in his hand before moving past it and stepping out into the dirt clearing to face johnny.

she stared at him, her gaze going over the clothes he wore. one of her best dresses. the wig was a near-perfect match to her hair, and with the makeup he had used, his features were almost similar.

and he was leaning against the camaro, a wide smile on his face as she watched him silently.

"you did good, baby," johnny told bedsford quietly as the other man moved to him.

johnny lifted his face and gave bedsford a quick kiss while keeping his eyes on crista.

"poor crista." johnny sighed as bedsford moved away from him. "you should have kept your distance from dawg. i could have helped you out a bit here if you had. besides, torturing my cousin was one of the points of this game that i enjoyed the most."

"how sad," crista whispered, meaning it. "you've spent your life coveting everything dawg is and has rather than building your own life. why?"

his eyes narrowed on her. "because it should have been mine. haven't you figured it out yet, crista? i actually thought dawg would have figured it out, but he was never smart enough to put two and two together."

she stared back at him, old gossip whipping through her mind as she traced his features, his build.

he looked like his mother, nothing like his father, so it was impossible to tell.

he chuckled, a low, frightening sound. "you remember, don't you? after ralph grace died, the rumors began slithering through the county like snakes that refused to die. mother was pregnant when she married ralph. unfortunately, ralph wasn't the father, no matter how much he thought he was."

it was sickening.

crista glanced away from him, her eyes closing momentarily at the thought of those old tales.

"yes, chandler mackay was my father." he sounded girlishly pleased at relating that information.

"i was actually born first, by a few days. brenda mackay, dawg's mother, knew, of course, and used it to force our father to sign it all over to dawg in his will. the stupid bitch, she should have taken her little bastard and left then rather than hang around and steal everything that should have been mine."

crista felt her knees weaken at the fury in johnny's voice.

incest. chandler mackay, it had been rumored, had been sleeping with his sister for years before she married ralph grace, and then again, after the other man's death. there were those who swore that chandler mackay had had a hand in grace's death himself.

she turned and looked at bedsford then, watching as his gaze roamed around the area, eyes narrowed, as though searching for something.

"your boyfriend here thinks you're going to run to nicaragua with him, johnny," she said, more to distract bedsford than anything else. "i told him you would never leave somerset or dawg. what would be the point of all this if you couldn't torture him with it?"

a self-satisfied smile shaped johnny's lips as bedsford turned to him.

"our plans may change now that i have you here." he shrugged his shoulders as though it didn't matter. "why leave somerset when, like you say, i can stay here and torture all parties involved?"

"so you definitely intend to kill me." she prayed dawg was close. surely if he was here by now, he would have done something.

"i really don't have a choice, sweetheart." he sighed, shaking his head in mock compassion.

"that wasn't the plan, johnny." bedsford stared at him in shock. "we can't stay around here now. there's no way the mackays won't know we were involved."

"they won't know anything, jim," he promised, reaching out to touch the scowl on the other man'

s face. "settle down, lover. everything will work out perfectly. you'll see."

crista saw it coming, and she was certain jim should have, most likely did. the hand holding the gun twitched as his scowl deepened, but johnny's other hand came up too fast. the gun he held exploded. the bullet tore into bedsford's chest, straight through his heart, and left him staring back at johnny in shock.

he fell to his knees, his hands reaching out to johnny as johnny stepped back; then bedsford toppled over to the ground.

crista stared in shock, her eyes locked with jim bedsford's surprised, agonized gaze as it slowly dimmed and grew cold.

"that was unfortunate." johnny sighed.

crista lifted her head, only then noticing that johnny wore clear latex gloves over his hands.

"he loved you," she said, knowing it didn't matter. nothing mattered to johnny but destroying dawg.

"of course he loved me." johnny rolled his eyes at the declaration. "he adored me. i worked hard to make certain he did. but i no longer need him. this way, i don't have to split the million dollars, and i don't have to leave somerset for fear of him growing a conscience over his cousin's death. jim was a bit of a whiner. he didn't like killing the boy."

"dawg knows you're involved in this, johnny. if you kill me, he won't need the law on his side.

he'll take you apart. you know he will."

"a million dollars can buy a lot of protection. and dawg and natches aren't the only ones who know how to hide and fire a rifle, crista," he told her with amused unconcern.

johnny couldn't know the evidence the agents had on him; if he did, he wouldn't be so certain. all she had to do was be patient; dawg would be there. johnny wouldn't expect that. as far as he knew, no one would even consider suspecting him of impersonating her.

"and alex? do you think he won't take up where dawg might fail? this isn't going to go over as easy as you think it will, johnny."

he was silent for long moments. moments that seemed to drag out, to stand still as the forest around them held its breath. silence descended in the clearing as the smell of blood and death began to fill crista's head.

she could feel herself shaking, shuddering.

where was dawg? rowdy had promised he would be here, that they were watching her, following her. a chill of fear raced through her body, causing her to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering.

"i've had this planned for a long time, crista." he sighed. "though i hadn't intended to kill you.

only make certain you were arrested for my crimes." his smile was maniacal. "that would have destroyed dawg. he's really in love with you, you know that? he nearly drank himself to death after you left eight years ago. of course, he didn't remember the night you spent with him. and"-his smile became demonic-"he didn't know about your miscarriage either, did he? does he know now?"

"he knows." her throat was so tight she felt as though she were strangling. "what you don't understand, johnny, is that he knows you were involved. the homeland security agents know its you; alex will know. you are not going to get away with this."

"no one has enough proof for anything." he waved her warning away. "no one can touch me, crista. i made sure of it. when your bodies are found, it's going to look like you had a disagreement and killed each other. and of course, i'll give a statement that jim confided his affair with you to me. too many people are aware that we were at least friends. i have it all worked out, sweetheart." he moved then, sliding to the side as he waved the gun toward alex's car. "move on over here now."

crista moved slowly, praying. dawg had to be close by. she could feel him, feel eyes watching her, just as she was certain jim had until she distracted him. before johnny killed him.

"there you go." johnny smiled back at her as he bent and lifted jim's gun from the ground. "now, all i have to do is put a bullet in your heart, place the weapons appropriately, and drive out of here. it's all over now."