Rio glances up from his computer. “Will you get your fucking feet off the table?”
“These are my clean boots,”Gabriel argues.
Rio quirks an eyebrow. “Only a farm boy would think that’s a good excuse for bad manners.”
Gabriel counters. “Being a farm boy is an insult?”
He narrows his dark eyes. “That table cost nearly twenty grand, G.”
Gabriel drops his feet, one at a time, but mutters. “More money, more problems.”
“Nope.” Rio smirks. “You’ve been my problem since I was dirt poor.”
Enzo—Rio’s twin—doesn’t even look up from his computer but sniggers. Ava sits behind him at her workstation, sunlight catching the red in her hair. The two of them are so well matched, it still guts me sometimes.
When I got taken into captivity and was told to look after a terrified twelve-year-old young girl, I never expected to get attached. I didn’t expect her to be the one who anchored me back into the world when everything else fell apart.
Seeing her happy with Enzo is enough to make my heart hurt in the best damn way.
It’s strange how life works. I spent years planning to save us both… Turns out, she’s the one who saved me—and then found us both a place in Echo Valley.
Gabriel leans back in his chair and fixes me with that steady look of his. “As you were saying…”
I exhale. “I need to know you’re truly okay with letting it go.”
I don’t go back on my word. If he says he wants to keep Shadow Justice alive, I’ll stay.
But Gabriel doesn’t struggle with it. “I’m happy to spend more time with Lara. I’ll still need work, though. She’s launching her charity, so she won’t want to babysit me all day. If this conversation is some sort of heart-to-heart, I’d like to go back to ranch life. Something with the horses.”
His brother Santi walks over with a steaming coffee from the absurdly expensive machine in the corner. “I wondered how long it would take for you to come back and bother us all again.”
Gabriel flicks a gum wrapper at him. It hits Santi’s cheek. He laughs because he’s a tough-ass man but one full of humor.
This entire family built themselves an empire—horse training and breeding as well as a tech company worth more than some nations’ GDP. Shadow Justice was never going to be on their level. But when Gabriel and I started it, neither of us needed the money.
We needed grounding. A transition from who we were to who we want to become.
Gabriel has shares in GhostEye and a cut of the breeding business; he could coast off dividends for the next decade. And me?
The one advantage to going missing for thirteen years was that my investments kept growing while I had no way to spend or wreck them. Nearly a million dollars now, untouched.
It’s not enough to retire forever but more than enough to breathe.
Ava doesn’t need it—she’s making a quarter mil at GhostEye and about to marry a wealthy man to boot.
That leaves my unborn child.
And Freya.
God, would I love to spoil her…in more ways than one.
Gabriel studies me again. “What about you?”
Before I can answer, Ava taps a key and then swivels her chair toward me. “Why don’t you do carpentry or furniture?” she asks. “Everyone here knows you can’t handle a real job.”
I scoff. “Excuse me?”
“I meaaaan…” she draws the word out, smiling wide. “You can’t deal with having a boss.”
