Twenty-seven dollars won't get me far and walking sixty miles back to Drybone isn't my idea of a good time.
I nod once. "Sure. Appreciate it."
No eagerness, or reluctance. Just survival math.
I slide into the passenger seat, body adjusting to the smooth, soft leather. The truck is new and isn’t a work truck, per se. Not with the upgrades. It was custom. So there’s a big ol’ screen built into the dash. Wide, and pretty, and full fuckin’ color. And on that screen is a picture of Savannah Ashby, Cash’s younger sister, her long hair catching the golden hour sun like an angel.
But she's not alone.
A man stands beside her, hand resting possessively on her lower back. Tailored suit. Political smile. The kind of man who's never had dirt under his fingernails that wasn't put there deliberately for a campaign photo op.
I let my eyes linger just long enough to catalog details. The way her head tilts toward him. The diamond catching light on her left hand. The careful staging of intimacy.
The photo sits prominently displayed. Impossible to miss.
Cash says nothing.
I say nothing.
The truck roars out of the parking lot the same way it came in.
Highways in Eastern Montana stretch long and far. Empty land on both sides, nothing but fence posts marking property lines that mean everything to men like Cash and nothing to men like me.
The first twenty miles pass in silence.
Not the comfortable kind. The kind that performs itself—two men who have nothing to say pretending they're just choosing not to speak.
I watch Cash's eyes flick to the rearview. Once. Twice. Third time his jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath tanned skin. His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel.
He's worried about something.
Badlands, probably.
They're gonna be pissed about missing my release day. Three years of keeping my mouth shut, taking the fall, earning my patch—and now the welcome wagon's a no-show because Cash Ashby pulled strings to grab me first.
Why?
It’s anybody’s guess.
The AC hums cold against my skin. Some sad-sack country song whispers from the speakers, turned down low enough that I only catch fragments. Something about burying love next to the hunting dogs out back.
My fingers trace the edges of the letters inked across my knuckles. M-E-R-C-Y. My baby sister. Nine years old and already carrying the weight of our family's broken promises. Theone person who never stopped needing me, even when I chose not to be there.
Because that’s what this prison sentence was.
A choice.
I didn’t do it.
And I get it, everyone says that.
But no. I really,reallydidn’t do it.
I was just the cleanest motherfucker without a previous felony record within reach. A guaranteed slap on the wrist.
Three years. I mean, I guess it’s a helluva lot better than twenty, but it’s still three fuckin’ years.
Cash clears his throat like he's about to deliver a sermon. His finger taps the photo, just sittin’ there on the screen in all its loud, static stillness. "That's Marcus," he says, eyes sliding sideways to gauge my reaction.
