Chapter One
One Month Earlier
Trent Mallor shifted his pickup into park and stared at Karl Simpson’s truck, which was crooked in Trent's driveway. That told Trent everything he needed to know about how this conversation would go.
Karl leaned against the driver's side door, arms crossed, with that easy grin that used to mean trouble was about to get fun. Now it just meant trouble.
Slipping from behind the wheel, Trent made his way across the gravel drive, doing his best to keep his attitude in check.
"Mallor." Karl pushed off the truck and spread his hands wide. "Looking good, brother."
Trent stopped a few feet away, keeping distance between them. “I’m not your brother.” The last time they’d seen each other, about six months ago, it hadn’t gone well. “What do you want?"
"Can't a guy visit an old friend?"
“We stopped being friends the moment you took a gator from my property.”
Karl's grin flickered but didn't die. He was a big man, gone slightly soft around the middle but still carrying the kind of muscle that came from wrestling reptiles for a living. His sun-weathered face was a map of every bad decision he'd ever made, and there'd been plenty.
"Come on. That was years ago. Water under the bridge."
“I don’t think so.” Trent laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Besides that, I spent six months on probation because I took the heat for you. Had to grovel to every conservation officer in the state to get back in their good graces. And what did I get from you for my trouble ? Nothing except the expectation that I’d do it again.”
“Not true, and I said I was sorry."
"You said it was a misunderstanding."
Karl shrugged. "Semantics."
They'd been friends once. Good friends, even. They'd done the Python Challenge together three years running, hauling invasive Burmese pythons out of the Glades for bounty money and bragging rights. They'd pushed boundaries, cut corners, done things that came close to crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed. Young and stupid and convinced they were invincible.
Then Karl had gotten greedy. Started dealing in animals he had no business dealing in. When the wildlife officers came knocking, it was Trent's name on the paperwork, not to mention he’d been caught with an illegal python kill by Karl, because Trent decided to clean up the mess.
He'd taken the heat. Kept his mouth shut about Karl's involvement because he still believed in loyalty back then. Still believed that the code meant something.
It didn't. Not to men like Karl.
"Look," Karl said, dropping his voice like they were co-conspirators instead of former friends. "I didn't come here to rehash old shit. I came here with an opportunity."
"Not interested."
"You haven't even heard what it is."
"Don't need to." Trent crossed his arms. "Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying."
Karl stepped closer, his eyes bright with the kind of excitement that always preceded disaster. "I've got clients. The kind with deep pockets and specific needs. They're looking for someone with your skills—the snake work, the gator handling, the whole package. We're talking more money than either of us has ever seen."
"No."
"Just hear me out?—"
“I’ve heard more than I wanted to already.” Trent's voice went flat and hard. "My days of skirting the law are over. I've got a business to run. A mother to take care of. I'm not throwing that away to help you make a quick buck off whatever shady deal you've cooked up this time."
Karl's expression soured. "You've gotten soft. That's what this is. Gone all respectable." He said the word like it tasted bad.
"Maybe. Or maybe I just got smart enough to stop making the same mistakes."
"This isn't a mistake. This is the score of a lifetime."
