Dylan awoke in a cage.

Awareness came to him by slow degrees, as if he were clawing his way out of a thick fog. His eyelids stuck to his eyeballs, clicking as he tried to keep them open for more than a second. His tongue felt like a raisin forgotten on the desert floor.

When he tried to move, excruciating pain shot through his head and neck. Nausea roiled in his gut. His arms and legs and back didn’t want to move. Glancing down, he found his body contorted into inhuman angles in order to make him fit inside a four-by-five cell.

“What the hell?”

He tried to sit up, and his head swished back and forth like a dingy stranded in the middle of the ocean. Pain knifed through his skull.

“Shit!” he wheezed, turning on his side in time to vomit.

When he finished heaving, he slouched in his cage, brushing his fingertips over the source of his worst pain and found a large lump on the ridge below his eye. He sucked in a sharp breath at his light touch.

A few inches from his ear, something mewled. He made a sudden move and instantly regretted it. Nausea rolled over him, once again. Slowly, he angled his head around enough to find three black bear cubs hunched together in a cage similar in size to his.

“Hello, kiddos.”

Given their small size, maybe thirty to thirty-five pounds, he guessed they’d been born later than normal. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

“How sweet,” Eli Harwood said, coming into view. “You’ve already made friends with your cellmates.”

Vague images wavered in his mind. Harwood standing above him, a rifle pointed at his torso. A sting to his thigh. Darkness. A mocking voice singing, “Nighty, night.” Water streaming over his head, but not to quench his thirst.

“Let me out of here, Harwood.”

“I don’t think so.”

“This is kidnapping.”

“We see the situation quite differently.”

“How so?”

“I’m detaining you until the authorities arrive.” He levered himself up on the bear cage, making the cubs mewl louder and shrink away. “Breaking and entering’s against the law.”

More images surfaced of him picking a lock, seeing rows of animal parts, then nothing.

“So is wildlife trafficking.” He squinted at all the crates and jars. “I’m more than happy to accept my punishment, are you?”

Eli’s expression chilled. “You shouldn’t have been nosing around.”

He might not be able to remember what happened after he arrived here, but the reason for his visit sat crystal clear in his mind.

“Afraid I’ll figure out what Gold Star means?”

“Gold Star?”

“You don’t know anything about it.” He laughed, holding back a wince. How could he not know the codename given to the sellers?

“Shut your mouth.”

He laughed harder.

Eli jumped off his perch and slammed a boot heel against the bars of his prison, catching the tips of his fingers.

He shook out his hand, not allowing his discomfort to overshadow the moment. “What’s the matter? Family keeping secrets from you?”

“Shut up!”

“Why do you suppose Caleb’s not entrusting you with Gold Star?”

“Last warning, Conrad.” His breaths sawed through the air.

He should stop taunting the bastard. But the man’s emotional wound was splintered wide open, and he couldn’t stop salting it.

“Could it be that he doesn’t trust his murderous little brother?”

Something hard, cold, and calculating formed in Harwood’s eyes as his gaze swung from him to the cubs. Dylan’s heart skittered to a halt. He straightened—or at least, tried to.

Unlocking the crate, Eli grasped one of the cubs by the scruff of the neck, dragging him out. The cub hung docile in his grip as if dangling from his mother’s mouth. The sorrowful noises emanating from his small frame told the real story.

Eli produced a long-bladed knife and pressed it against the cub’s side.

“Don’t!”

“What’s the matter, Conrad? Nothing funny now?”

“Put the cub back, Harwood. You’ve made your point.”

“What’s my point?”

“That you’ll use every leverage available—even innocence—to force my compliance.”

“I’m not after your compliance, though I’ll take it.”

“What’d you want from me?”

“Your respect.”

The man was insane. When placed next to his towering dad and charismatic brother, Eli Harwood blended into the background, became invisible. Nonexistent. Evidently, the youngest Harwood was no longer content in his role as wallflower.

He couldn’t watch the nutcase kill the cub, nor could he hand over total control. Guys like Eli fed off fear. Consumed it like a cold glass of water.

“The cub’s better off dead. Whoever you’re selling it to will either pen it, torture it, or slowly kill it.”

A dam of unmitigated fury broke behind Eli’s green eyes, though his expression remained disturbingly neutral. He threw the cub back into the crate. A high-pitched shriek pierced the air. Eli ignored it as he marched toward Dylan’s cage.

As hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep his fear in check. Death approached, and he had nowhere to run. The metal bars wouldn’t stop the coming onslaught.

Eli’s first stab glanced off his biceps. The next ripped through his jeans at the knee. Harwood didn’t attack him with mindless fervor. He considered each hit with a physician’s precision.

Dylan slid down to the floor of the cage, making himself as small as possible. The attack continued without pause, but Eli couldn’t get his elbow through the narrow bars.

Still, he inflicted enough stinging wounds to make Dylan’s blood flow freely and pool on the concrete floor, mixing with his vomit. His strength ebbed, making his defensive moves sluggish and ineffective.

Eli crouched next to his cage, waiting him out like a tiger watching its prey for any sign of weakness. When Dylan’s eyelids fluttered, Eli raised the knife one final time.