CHAPTER 6
The helicopter banks left and my stomach rolls with it. Outside the window, Montana spreads beneath us—patchwork fields, winding rivers, and endless sky.
The nurse beside me checks my IV line. "How are you feeling, Mr. Kane?"
"Like I'm being kidnapped by rich people," I say, not looking at her.
She laughs like I'm joking. I'm not.
The sepsis is gone, but I'm still weak. Three additional days of recovery at Mayo after I woke up, and they still insisted on this whole transport setup. Private medical plane. Helicopter waiting to take me to the Ashby Ranch. I feel like a piece of expensive cargo.
The pilot announces our descent, and my ears pop with the pressure change. Below us, the land shifts from anonymous fields to something I recognize—the familiar contours of Drybone. I can make out the winding ribbon of the dry riverbed that separates Kane land from Ashby territory.
I've never crossed that line before. Not properly. Not through the front door.
The helicopter ride is worse than the plane—louder, shakier, more intimate with the sky. Through the window, I catch my first real look at the Ashby Ranch from above. It's obscene how much land they own, how green it is compared to everything around it. The main house sits in the center like a crown.
Log cabin? Only if ten-thousand square feet of 'rustic' living can count as a cabin.
When we land, the medical team ignores my complaints about the gurney. I argue once, twice, three times before giving up. They've got their procedures. I'm just a body they're transporting.
"I can walk," I tell them for the fourth time as they wheel me out.
"Protocol, Mr. Kane," says the one who seems to be in charge.
Even over the spinning rotors, I can hear her. "Legion! Legion!"
Mercy is running toward the helicopter, her face split with a grin I haven't seen since before I went to prison. Someone catches her before she reaches me—a broad-shouldered man in a black suit, definitely security, not ranch staff. His hand on her shoulder is gentle but firm.
The bodyguard points up at the rotors, tells her something I can't hear. Mercy looks up at the spinning blades, then shrinks back. But when I'm wheeled out from under them, she's there. Rushing up to me, bouncing on her toes, waving frantically. "You look better!" she yells. "Not gray anymore!"
I lift my hand in a small wave, embarrassed by the whole setup—me on a gurney like some invalid, her being held back like I'm dangerous.
No Cash. No Savannah either.
This is a mistake. I should be at the trailer. That double-wide might not feel like home yet, but at least it's mine. Or was. I don't even know if I still have it, or if the club took it back after everything.
They load me into an ambulance for the short drive to the house. Through the back windows, I watch Mercy running alongside until the security guy catches up with her. A small dog yaps at her heels—something fluffy and useless-looking that hasn’t had a place in this story of mine until now.
A puppy. Did they have the puppy before Mercy came to live here?
Doubt it.
It's a bribe.
But kids don't care. It's not that Mercy's fallin' for Cash's lies, it's that he's giving her things she could only dream of before now.
Is this what Colt did to Destiny?
I'm not sure. I'm not gonna ask, either. Destiny, young as she is, is an adult now. A mother. She's allowed to make her own mistakes.
Still, it burns. The Ashbys and their money, thinking they can own everything and everyone.
I don't wanna be here. But I'm not leaving Mercy alone with Cash. And there's something deeply satisfying about the thought of Cash having to watch me and Savannah together under his own roof.
Like, as a couple.
In his childhood home.
