“Order!” Maggie shouted into the microphone. “There will be order in this chamber.”

It was quickly clear, though, that no amount of shouting or gavel banging was going to settle the unruly crowd. The members looked taken aback, bordering on panicked at the mob Johansen had incited. Maggie looked at Spenser, fear on her face, clearly not knowing what to do. Spenser motioned for them to get out of there. Maggie nodded and said a few words to the rest of the council who quickly got up from their desk and hustled out of the chamber, disappearing through the door behind the dais.

With the council safely away, Spenser waved to the deputies on duty to get their attention and keyed open her radio. “Woods, Sutter, get that crowd out of here. Get them all out of the building. Now, get them out.”

“Copy that, Sheriff,” Woods replied.

As the mob was being ushered out of the chamber, Johansen turned and glared at Ricci and Kyra before walking away from them in disgust. They had obviously not counted on anybody challenging them. His lips curled back in a ferocious snarl, Johansen steamed straight toward her. Spenser’s body tensed and her hand reflexively drifted toward her weapon. He stopped just a couple of feet in front of her, his face red, his nostrils flaring, and his eyes boring into hers.

Spenser cut a quick look around. Her deputies were still herding the mob out the doors and she noticed that Ricci’s seat was empty. He’d obviously slithered back under the rock he’d emerged from. She was all alone with the enraged man.

“You destroyed my boy’s life. I won’t let you get away with this,” he said. “You’re going to pay for that, Song. I promise you that you’re going to pay.”

“The problem with you is that you can’t accept the fact that your boy’s decisions are what damaged his future. Not me. Nor can you accept that you raised a spoiled, entitled little monster,” Spenser said. “Although, it’s not hard to see where JJ learned it from.”

“Don’t you dare speak his name ever again.”

Spenser shrugged. “Trust me, once he’s sentenced and sent away, I won’t think of him ever again, let alone speak his name.”

Johansen’s eyes burned with rage and hate, and he bared his teeth like a rabid dog. He pointed a finger in her face and it was all Spenser could do to keep from bending his wrist backward and dropping the man to his knees.

“This isn’t over,” he growled.

“Well, whenever you’re ready, you know where to find me,” Spenser replied and put the Stetson atop her head. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Yep. I’ll tell you all about it when I get up to the house. It was wild,” Spenser said into her phone. “I’m at the cabin and just want to grab a few things so I’ll be up the hill here in a minute.”

“Well, hurry up,” Ryker said. “I’m putting a bottle of champagne on ice as we speak. You deserve a celebration.”

Spenser laughed. “I’ll be just a minute. I’m looking forward to celebrating with you.”

“Me too,” he replied softly.

Spenser disconnected the call and dropped the phone into the Bronco’s center console then climbed out of the vehicle.

For the first time in a while, she believed things would get better. She saw sunlight at the end of the long, dark tunnel she’d been walking through since this whole fiasco began. The council, while perhaps not strictly by her side, at least had her back. They’d valued her enough to do their due diligence and look into the allegations Johansen was lobbing instead of simply accepting them as fact. Spenser appreciated that more than she could even say. Spenser felt good. Life was good.

A smile on her face, Spenser approached the stairs that led up to the porch of her cabin. She raised her foot to take the first step up when she heard the rustle of leaves behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and every warning bell in her body started to clang simultaneously. Before she could turn, something hard slammed into her back, driving the air from her lungs and throwing her forward onto the stairs. Spenser grunted as her chin hit the wooden step, sending a searing pain through her body as blood began to flow down her neck.

Ignoring the pain that gripped her, Spenser threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding another blow from the baseball bat that crashed against the stairs right where her head had been. Her vision clouded by the tears that welled in her eyes, she looked up to see Alex Ricci glowering down at her with the baseball bat in his hands. Gripped with desperation, Spenser reached for the gun on her hip then cried out as he smashed her hand against the hard metal of the pistol with his bat. Her scream echoed throughout the woods that surrounded the cabin and her fingers throbbed, some of them likely broken.

Holding her injured hand, her breath shallow and wheezing, Spenser looked into Alex Ricci’s face as he leaned down, a feral gleam in his eye.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” he said. “This isn’t going to be anywhere near as satisfying as ruining your reputation and destroying everything you built would have been. If not for Johansen’s incompetence, I would have gotten to sit back and watch you lose everything.”

“Seems like screwing that all up was a group effort. That happens when your team is full of idiots who don’t know their butts from a hole in the ground,” Spenser huffed.

He snorted darkly. “Funny.”

He thrust the head of the bat into her stomach with a snarl, driving out what little air she’d managed to get back into her lungs. Spenser’s vision wavered and her head spun as pain raced along every nerve ending in her body. The blood flowing from the gash in her chin was warm and tacky on her skin and her heartbeat was loud in her ears, making her eyes throb in time with it.

“Since I’m obviously not going to get what I want and take everything from you, I guess I’m going to have to settle for killing you,” he told her, his tone as casual as if he was discussing the weather. “Like I said, this isn’t what I wanted and it definitely won’t be as fun as watching your world crumble and burn, but watching that light leave your eyes as you die is going to have to do. At least I’ll be content that I’ll have avenged my brother.”

Still gasping and fighting for air, a crooked grin flickered on Spenser’s lips. “I see why you and Johansen became thick as thieves so quickly—neither of you can accept the reality that your family—his son and your brother—are criminals who brought about their own downfalls. I was simply there to collect the pieces. I’m not responsible for them going to prison or destroying their lives. They did that all by themselves.”

His face twisted with rage as his eyes narrowed to slits. The bat hit the ground with a muffled thud as he reached under his coat. Spenser swallowed hard as the cold moonlight glittered off the edge of the long, curved blade in his hand. She finally caught her breath and managed to stop the spinning of her head. She was queasy but at least she didn’t feel like she was standing on the deck of a boat in rough seas anymore.

“This was always my favorite blade when I worked for the Arias family,” he said. “I used it. A lot.”

“Yeah, I saw pictures of your handiwork.”

“I haven’t used this knife in a couple of years. I kind of missed it, to be honest,” he said, his voice thick with nostalgia. “But I’ve always thought about bringing it out of retirement for you.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

Ricci leaned down and pressed the point of the blade into Spenser’s cheek. She winced and her face flared with pain as he traced a line down her cheek, spilling more of her blood.

“I’m going to take my time with you,” he said. “I’m going to make this hurt, Spenser. My brother deserves the comfort and joy of knowing you suffered in your last moments on this earth.”

The Bureau had a thick file on Ricci but had never been able to make a case stick in all the years they tracked him. He was as intelligent as he was crafty and elusive. But Spenser had studied Ricci extensively and knew he was a sadist. When he worked as a hitter for the cartel, he was widely known to torture his victims. Rather than a gun, he favored knives and other implements meant to inflict maximum damage. A quick, merciful kill was not in his bag of tricks.

Some she’d spoken to believed he tortured his victim so cruelly to send a message—a warning—to anybody else who gave thought to crossing the cartel. But Spenser had always believed that wasn’t it.

“Don’t use your brother as an excuse,” Spenser grunted. “You’re doing this because you like it. You’re doing this because you get off on it.”

He shrugged. “Both things can be true.”

She squirmed as he carved another line down her other cheek, the lower half of her face now slicked entirely with blood. The coppery taste of it in her mouth was like old pennies in her cheeks and the pain made her eyes water. But Spenser bit her tongue, determined to keep from crying out and giving him the satisfaction.

“Scream for me, Spenser,” he said.

“Go fu—”

The sharp crack of his hand meeting her cheek rang in her ears. Spenser winced and sucked in a breath as the furrow he’d cut into her skin was set ablaze. Her eyes watered and she bit her tongue hard enough to draw fresh blood, but Spenser held firm, refusing to give in and give him what he wanted.

“Watch your mouth,” he growled dangerously. “I don’t like foul language. It’s crass and frankly, it’s beneath you, Spenser.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said through gritted teeth.

As she racked her brain, trying to figure a way out of this mess, Ricci flashed her a dark smile and ran the tip of his blade lightly down her throat, moving down across her chest, to her stomach where he looked into her eyes as he traced small circles. Her heart raced and iron bands of fear locked themselves around her chest, making it difficult to breathe, as her mind flashed back to photos of his suspected victims, flayed and completely disemboweled.

She swallowed hard as a low chuckle passed his lips. Ricci leaned forward and sunk the tip of his blade into her oblique, drawing a sharp hiss from her. She grunted and tried to keep from crying out as he slid the knife into her side slowly, inch by agonizing inch. Spenser’s blood spilled around the hilt of the knife, gushing down her skin in waves. Knowing he was something of an expert in anatomy, he was careful to avoid hitting anything vital. It was how he prolonged the suffering of his victims. The pain was monstrous and intense and if she didn’t get out of this soon and get some help, she was going to bleed out.

Spenser tried desperately to push away the pain. She tried to shut it out or somehow mentally dull it. But nothing was working. Her body was on fire, and she finally couldn’t choke it back anymore. Spenser threw her head back and let out a scream of pure agony. Ricci’s eyes lit up like he was caught in the most rapturous sensation he’d ever had. His eyes glittered and he seemed to savor every second and every note of her shrieking like the finest wine. The pain drew tears from her eyes and Spenser silently cursed herself for her weakness.