We’ve been driving for what feels like forever—past cornfields, through dark stretches of highway, then up into the hills where streetlights turn into stars.I swear we’ve crossed into the land time forgot.
I’ve got zero signal and a growing suspicion that this might be how people end up on true crime podcasts.
Coop—the driver and a mountain in a leather vest—catches my eye in the rearview mirror.
“Don’t worry, Sweetheart.Rooster says we’re helping, so you’re good, trust me,” Coop says.
He’s young, maybe in his mid-twenties with dark hair and a polite demeanor.
But am I just supposed to trust him?I mean, yeah, right.
Because I’m somehow comforted now by a guy I don’t know from Adam, who looks like he could bite the heads off nails for fun.
I hug myself tighter.
“Okay, definegood.”
Coop grins.
“Safe.You’re goin’ to a sorta friend of ours.We got some business with him.”
“But what’s he like?”
“Uh, I never met him, but I heard he’s ex-military.Straight shooter.Keeps to himself.”
Right.Because “keeps to himself,” totally doesn’t sound like “buries bodies in the back pasture.”
I almost laugh—almost—but I’m too tired, too wired, too damn confused to find it funny.I close my eyes and breathe, counting mile markers in my head until the truck finally slows and turns down a dirt road.
The headlights catch a wooden sign half-hanging off its hinges.
It saysJERSEY IRON RANCH.
“End of the line,” Coop says.
The truck grinds to a stop in front of a long stretch of fencing and a barn big enough to house a jet.
The night air hits me like a slap—cool, crisp, smelling faintly of hay, leather, and something musky I can’t place.
I climb out, my boots sinking into the gravel.
My phone’s dead now.My nerves are shot.
And somewhere behind me an animal—I think it’s a bull—snorts loud enough to make my spine stiffen.
Then I see him.
A man is stepping off the porch looking like sin dressed in denim.
Broad shoulders.Work-worn jeans.Hair a little too long, like he forgot civilization was a thing.
There’s a lazy confidence in the way he moves—controlled, deliberate, dangerous.
And those eyes—gray, maybe green, it’s hard to tell in the dark—they pin me in place like he’s cataloging every mistake I’ve ever made.
The stranger is chatting with the guys we rode with, and I can vaguely make out their conversation as he introduces himself to Falcon and the others.
“Sawyer DeWitt.This is Diego.He works the ranch with me and his uncle, Alex.”
