This wasn’t a random attack or an opportunistic crime against the family. Peyton was targeted. But why? I’ve been guessing that all of the small intrusions on the ranch had something to do with her arrival, but this confirms it. Someone has been trying to get to her.
I stand and slowly scan the scene with new eyes. The angle of the impact. The clean extraction. No panic. No overkill. Whoever did this know exactly how much force was needed to disable without killing.
Professional.
“Did you see anyone?” I ask Wyatt, Sutton’s driver, who is bleeding from a cut above his eye, but he is still standing. “Anything at all.”
He swallows. “Two vehicles. One hit us. One behind. Van. Dark. No plates.”
Fuck.
I turn away before the rage leaks out in front of witnesses. Ace is on the phone, pacing, barking orders into it like a man trying to outrun hell.
“She’s gone,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says grimly. “I’ve got eyes on every road leading out of town. Cameras. Plate readers. Nothing has come back yet.”
“They planned this,” I say. “They knew where she’d be. Knew she’d be with Sutton. Knew John would send a driver.”
Ace goes still.
So who told them?”
That’s what I haven’t figure out yet. But I do know one thing. It had to have been someone within the family.
Headlights sweep across the wreckage, braking hard at the edge of the chaos. I don’t have to look to know who it is.
John’s truck skids to a crooked stop behind a cruiser, door flying open before the engine even cuts. He barrels out like a man possessed, eyes wild, scanning the scene until they lock on Sutton.
“Sutton,” he bellows, rushing toward her. Sutton hears him and whatever fragile control she had left collapses.
“John—” Her voice breaks completely as she scrambles to her feet and stumbles into him. He catches her just in time, arms wrapping around her as she sobs into his chest, fingers clutching his jacket like it’s the only solid thing left in the world. “They took her. I’m so sorry. They took Peyton. I tried—I swear I tried?—”
John’s hand cups the back of her head, holding her tight, his face twisted in something raw and unfiltered. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, kissing the top of her head softly. “You’re safe. You’re here.”
But his eyes lift over her shoulder.
They land on me.
And the temperature drops.
He gently hands Sutton off to the medic, steps away from her like he’s afraid his rage might spill onto her skin, and then is moving, fast, furious, and unstoppable.
He shoves me hard in the chest.
“This is your fault,” he snarls. “You said she was protected. You promised when you claimed her that she wouldn’t be touched. I warned you…”
I don’t move. Don’t flinch. I let him hit me again if he wants to.
“You didn’t warn her what we are,” he continues, voice cracking with fury. “You talk about me keeping secrets, but you let her walk around like she wasn’t a fucking target.”
“She was already a target,” I snap back. “Long before she ever met me.”
That stops him for half a second, but not enough.
“If you hadn’t claimed her and dragged her into?—”
“This has nothing with my claiming her,” I cut in, low and lethal. “Not all of it, anyway. Someone was after Peyton before she stepped foot in Crimson Ridge. The boundary issues we’ve had is proof of that.”
