Prologue
There is a world beneath what we see. Those with their mundane lives, struggling with their rentals, their day jobs.So much greed.Their vehicles, traveling from state to state with indulgent freedoms.
Freedoms not gifted to others who have been locked away from society for their views on the world. Freedoms stripped away, or ended permanently.
Such spoiled lives. The boons of those who know nothing of fear.
All that is given can be taken away, just as it was ripped from my brother.
He was followed. Stalked. His purpose twisted and turned into a monstrous narrative.
His life ended on the whim of a man who thought he understood justice when he knewnothing.
I grieved, for a time. Hid beneath my own blanket of fear.
That was then. Now is the time to return to the place where my brother lost his path. The path we were set on so long ago. That is what I grieve for, the man who I used to know.
The one I buried, I barely recognized.
But I know his killer.
I know where he will be.
We were the unseen, the silence that lingers in the dark to escape the light.
Waiting.
And now, I will return to complete the work that my brother failed at.
I will bring them fear, and I will illuminate their fallacy of privilege.
I will ruin their season of hope.
Simon Haldon did not die in vain.
Chapter 1
Archer
Red Hart Ranch wasn’t even in sight and yet my last trip across the country haunted me. Icy wind blasted my face despite the heating in my truck’s attempt to do its job and warm the inside of the cabin.
The mountainous regions of Montana came up fast after so long in the seat. My ass was numb, but every other part of me ached for the woman I hadn’t seen far in too long.
She traveled all the way to Texas for me in the meantime, for fuck’s sake, then drove all the way home—without me.
Because, work.
A problem I fixed when I handed the Texas Ranger’s office in Austin over into Andy Matthews’ more than capable hands. The younger Ranger might not have confidence in himself, but I had plenty, and now, so did his team.
Still, the thought that I should have been in Montana for the past months niggled at me over again. Where I knew I should have been since the day Simon Haldon left a mark on all our lives. Some, more than others.
The thought of the scars that Eve bore because I couldn’t pull my head out of my ass a second time to see the threat right in front of me still stung.
Damnit, I left this too late.
Chasing down the man who haunted us both, tying up loose ends. That’s what I spent the last eighteen months doing, until the day he turned up on my doorstep. That little venture didn’t work out so well for Haldon, but the man’s ghost still seemed to jinx us both. From the meagre contact I’d had with Eve, she sounded spooked every time I spoke to her, right up until the minute I left.
And then karma—spelled with a ‘c’ not a ‘k’—hit me in full force as I realized what holiday traffic felt like all over again.
