The rational part of my brain—the part that had made me wealthy before thirty—was screaming that this was a mistake. That I should be establishing boundaries, not erasing them.
The rest of me didn’t care.
I parked near the staging area and killed the engine. The operation looked more organized than yesterday—still overwhelming, but with a sense of purpose now. Volunteers moved between stations with confidence. Dogs barked from the holding areas, but it wasn’t the desperate sound from before. More like conversation.
I climbed out and dropped the tailgate, reaching for the first bag of dog food. Fifty pounds of premium kibble—the good stuff that cost twice as much as the generic brands.
I didn’t even own a dog.
What the hell was I doing?
I knew the answer, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I’d started investing at sixteen because I’d seen what poverty did to people—how it trapped them, limited them, made them small. I’d watched my parents scrape by, always one emergency away from disaster, and I’d sworn I’d never live like that.
So I’d learned about money. Studied it. Figured out how to make it work for me instead of the other way around. By twenty, I had a portfolio. By twenty-five, I had real estate. By thirty, I had more wealth than my parents had earned in their entire lives combined.
But somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten why I’d started. It wasn’t just about security anymore—it was about control. About never being vulnerable, never being caught off guard, never letting anything touch me that I hadn’t planned for.
Then Peyton had looked at me with those eyes, and all my careful control had crumbled like wet paper.
I hauled the first bag to the staging area and went back for another. The physical work felt good—mindless, productive, something to do with my hands while my brain tried to sort itself out.
“What are you doing?”
I turned. Peyton was standing ten feet away, clipboard in hand, the same ponytail threatening to escape, the same smudge of exhaustion under her eyes. She’d probably slept about as well as I had.
“Unloading supplies,” I said, hefting another bag onto my shoulder.
“I can see that.” She stepped closer, suspicion written all over her face. “Yesterday, you were threatening to shut us down. Today you’re bringing dog food?”
“I wasn’t threatening. I was explaining the lease terms.”
“You were definitely threatening.”
I set the bag down harder than necessary. “Look, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about—” I stopped myself before I said you. “The dogs. The situation. I figured if I’m stuck dealing with this mess, I might as well make myself useful.”
She studied me for a long moment, clearly not buying it. Smart woman.
“Dr. Hanson is still slammed,” she said finally. “We had two more emergency surgeries overnight. She’s not going to be available for a lease discussion anytime soon.”
“Fine. Then put me to work.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”
“I’m here. I’ve got supplies. Either tell me where they go, or I’ll figure it out myself.”
Something shifted in her expression—not quite trust, but maybe the beginning of it. “The food goes to the feeding station. Blankets to holding area two. Crates…” She checked her clipboard. “We could use them in overflow. Joel can show you where.”
“Joel?”
“Volunteer. Tall guy, red jacket. He’s by the intake tables.”
I nodded and grabbed a stack of blankets, heading in the direction she’d pointed. I felt her eyes on me the whole way.
The morning passed faster than I expected. I fell into the rhythm of the operation—hauling supplies, setting up crates, helping wherever an extra pair of hands was needed. The volunteers accepted me without question once they saw me working. No one asked who I was or why I was there. They just handed me tasks and moved on to the next crisis.
It was strangely freeing. No politics, no positioning, no careful calculation of how every action might be perceived. Just work that needed doing and people willing to do it.
Peyton found me around mid-morning, when I was helping reinforce a kennel that had started to buckle under the weight of too many occupants. “You’re pretty handy,” she said, watching me tighten the last bolt.
