Either way, it’s a start.
6
John standsrigid by the window, his silhouette framed by the soft wash of the early morning light. The sun stretches its pale fingers across the wood-paneled walls of the office, casting long, deliberate shadows flicker like ghosts with the slow movement of the trees outside. The silence here isn’t accidental—it’s heavy, weighted, as if the room itself is holding its breath, waiting.
John breaks it without hesitation. “She’s out in the barn,” he says, voice low but steady. “Rough start to settling in. Bit of a mouth on her.”
My eyes snap to his, sharp, assessing. “She treating Sutton good?”
He nods one, cold and sure. “Girl is as opinionated as her mother was. Mouth runs away with her. Trouble seems to follow her.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I say.
Slowly, he turns away from the window, moving with the careful deliberation of a man bracing for bad news. I step forward and plant my hands flat on the edge of his desk. There isn’t any challenge in this room. I’m the boss here. The one next in the line for the family throne. John may be older and wiser, but my father’s business will go to me, and he knows that.
“Fence was cut. Zone five. Ace found it first thing this morning.”
He doesn’t need me to say which side. He knows. The room tightens around us.
“Tracks lead from your side.”
His jaw twitches, a small, involuntary betrayal of the calm he’s trying to keep. “Someone’s trying to get past our security.”
“Yeah.”
John exhales through his nose, the breath slow and heavy, like it’s been sitting inside him, waiting to escape. “Any signs of foul play?”
“No animals missing, no gear gone. Only clean wire cuts. Like they had the place memorized.”
“And?”
“The west cam went dark. Twenty-two minutes. Right at 4:13 a.m.”
“No glitch?”
“None. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing. Cut the feed, then reconnected it as if nothing happened.”
He’s silent, chewing on what I’ve told him, muttering under his breath as he goes to pour himself a glass of whiskey. “Timing’s too damn convenient.”
I nod, the tension coiling tighter in my chest. “Someone’s testing us.”
“Seeing how fast we’ll catch on.”
“And how loud we’ll bark when we do.”
He allows a faint curve to his mouth, but it’s humorless, more a grim acknowledgement. “Good.”
“I want to know if someone’s sniffing around,” I say finally. “This doesn’t feel like a petty trespass. This feels like a message.”
He doesn’t look surprised. Just tired.
“You think it has to do with her?” he asks, not saying Peyton’s name, like it’s still too raw to speak out loud.
“I do.”
John walks to the window, the floorboards groaning beneath his boots. He stares out across Broken Ridge, the land he’s bled for, the empire he’s held together with a spine made of steel.
“She doesn’t know what she walked into,” he says. “Doesn’t know what her mother kept from her. Girl thinks that bitch was nothing but a strung-out junkie.”
