Already this flight home felt long.
Finn couldn’t sit.Not with Drew.Not this time.
He stood, leaning against the cabin’s bulkhead, arms crossed.Silently watching his prisoner.
He’d stood like this once before…
Back in prison, where he’d been the prisoner, staring down at Drew who’d laid out a pardon like bait.
Finn hadn’t sat then.Didn’t feel like he’d earned it.
Again, he’d stood in the Batcave, when Taryn’s PowerPoint presentation showed his betrayal.He couldn’t sit at the table, not with his own crew—not when he was the fool who’d brought Drew into their world.
But this was different.
Now he stood because Drew didn’t deserve to share that space.Because the man who had once loomed over him figuratively, now sat, literally cuffed and cornered.
Taryn sat behind Drew, laptop open, already working through the paperwork they’d need by touchdown.
Only then he’d realised her silence was deliberate.
With her phone balanced on the armrest beside her, it was still recording.Strategically placed just out of Drew’s line of sight.
Damn, she’s good.
Because she knew Finn didn’t do interrogation rooms.
Not after prison.Not after being the one cuffed, stared at and judged.
He preferred crime scenes, paddocks, the back of a ute, and places where he could breathe away from four brick walls, a door, and a ticking clock.
And she got that.Without the need to push or suggest a formal statement.She just set it up.Quietly.For him.Once he’d calmed down, of course.
Again, there was that shorthand they’d built across dust, road maps, and close calls.
But there was another question that needed to be asked.The one that twisted low in his guts:Was he good enough for her?
Finn honestly didn’t know if he deserved her, either.
Taryn had come back for justice, not for him, but for her family, who had bled because of what Drew had had done to her cousin, Meghan.
And now?With everything shifting beneath their boots: a baby, his team on trial, and his boss in handcuffs—what kind of future could he even promise Taryn, when he didn’t even know if he still had a job?
After a long stretch of silence, Finn spoke the one question that had never stopped circling… ‘Why?’
Drew sat back, staring past Finn, like it was all playing out on a screen only he could see.
‘I was the Federal Agricultural Commissioner.I read the reports.Took the calls.Saw the families sinking under the red tape.Being forced to complete mandatory carbon reports while they battle floods, drought, and fires—with the banks breathing down their necks setting crippling mortgage rates, and the creation of new taxes, while livestock is dying or drowning in paddocks.And they get no support.Only more paperwork and empty promises from the government that had been elected to help them.’
Drew sighed, all dramatic flair, and kept talking.‘I’ve watched foreign investors gut this country.They mine our minerals, take our resources, and walk away without paying a cent in taxes.They’re not buying cattle or sheep stations to run stock.They’re tearing up prime farmland for failed solar schemes and carbon offset credits.And there are now more foreign investors who own our precious water resources than actual farmers, and most of it goes straight into fracking for overseas companies.Prime grazing land is being sacrificed so the cities can keep their smart homes lit, while forgetting who the hell feeds them.And our government?Doesn’t lift a finger—except to vote in another pay rise and now, backflip on a promise to block American beef imports.Imports!Into the second-largest beef exporter on the damn planet.And you want to paint me as the villain?’
He didn’t say it in anger.Not even bitterness.
And that was the worst part—because every damn word of it was real.The country was being gutted while the government smiled for the cameras.
‘And yet you were in a position to fix at least some of it,’Finn said, his voice like dry gravel.‘But instead, you chose to rip off the farmers and landowners who trusted you.So stop playing politician and say the real reason why you did this.’He glared at Drew, daring him to finally tell the truth.
‘I told myself I was preserving something,’ continued Drew, lifting his chin in defiance.‘I was the one holding the line when no one else would.And when the system fails completely—which it will—I’ll be the one to help replace it.I tried to keep families on their cattle stations and crop farms.I swear I did.I’ve helped pay their bills, put fuel into their generators, and built a supply chain that actually worked, and wasn’t controlled by the supermarket giants.Sure, I profited.But so did everyone else.You weren’t chasing villains, Finn.You were dismantling the only thing keeping the Australian livestock industry alive for Australians.’
