She nodded at him like she understood.‘I have more than enough to bury that bastard for life.’
He swallowed down the heat to listen beyond his raging pulse.‘How?’
‘I’ve spent the past two days going through everything with my father, and we’ve connected the dots.We found legal proof of how Drew buried it in shell companies, fake contractors, cryogenic shipments, including his use of livestock routes.The Commissioner wasn’t helping the Stock Squad, Finn.He was helping himself.The worst of it is…’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s been in Elsie Creek and used that airstrip.’She pointed to the airport that sat beyond the mesh fence.‘Drew shook hands with the Stock Squad, giving your team their badges, while he had his assistant loading boxes filled with cryogenic canisters onto his jet.Arsehole.’
Finn’s hands curled around the steering wheel, knuckles tight and white.His jaw clenched, his eyes locked on the windscreen like it might give him a different point of view, to take back all those years of loyalty and blind faith he’d given to his mentor, Drew.
‘He used me,’ Finn said, his voice rough.‘I defended him.Trusted him.And all this time… he was gutting this country’s prime stock from the inside out.’He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest, like maybe if he pushed hard enough, he could stop the hollow tearing him apart.
Her hand curled around his arm, her thumb brushing the crook of his elbow.‘I’m so sorry.’
He didn’t speak.He couldn’t even move as the silence in the cab filled with a pressure in the air that made it hard to breathe, as the words echoed in his head, like static through a busted radio.He used me.Built his illegal empire on my second chance.Making me the frontman for the system he was stealing from.
It clawed at him like barbed wire lashed across his back.
Come on.Why this?When Finn had spent his entire life crawling out of gutters.
A drunk for a father who’d taught him pain and fear.
A badge ripped from his chest the second he’d earned it.
A son he’d buried.
A wife he’d lost.
Leaving him with no family, only fists in prison where every inch he’d ever gained, he’d bled for.
And just when he thought he’d found a place to build something that mattered, when the Stock Squad felt like a second chance,this.
If the stockmen in this town were ready to lynch Red and Two-bob Bob for stolen cattle, what would they do to him, the bloke who’d unknowingly handed the keys to the kingdom tohis boss!
He thought of Lydia.And of Brodie.Of Craig, Amara, Stone, Romy, Porter, and Izzy—all of them.How could he face any of them?The walking punchline of a twisted con.
Finn didn’t realise he was shaking until he felt her hand, steady and warm, resting on his forearm.
‘You need to tell them.’His voice cracked, like every word had scraped past the bruised edges of what was left of him.‘The team look at me like I’ve built something solid.I can’t be the one to take that from them.But you… You’re the outsider.The Fed.You’re the one who came to find the truth.’
And damn, didn’t she find that truth.
A bitter twist of a smile ghosted across his face.‘That’s why they’ll listen.Because you were the enemy.And now, it’s time for you to deliver.’
The line hit hard at how that wheel had turned.
Taryn stared at him with wide eyes.Because they both knew he wasn’t wrong.
She’d been the enemy who had come to dismantle them.And now, she might be the only one who could hold them together.
Thirty-six
Finn stood at the back of the room.Didn’t feel like he had the right to sit at the table—not anymore.
He’d done that before.Right at the very start of all this.Back when Drew had walked into prison wearing that suit and a smug smile, laying down a federal pardon in front of Finn, who’d been chained up like a dog.
Should’ve known it came with a price.
