This isn’t some grand crusade against hypocrisy.
It’s heartbreak with a body count.
And somehow that’s worse.
He steps back finally, the room giving me one full breath of space again. “Whatever story you’re telling yourself, it won’t matter when this is done.”
Maybe, maybe not, but I know this much now: he’s rattled.
The thought of Ryder and Zane and Finn arriving soon hits me so hard it almost cracks me open.
Ryder, with his terrible beautiful control, already turning himself into a weapon. Zane, quiet and relentless, tracking every angle until there are none left. Finn, smiling his way through fear until it stops being funny and becomes dangerous.
Theyarecoming.
The certainty of it settles into me like heat, and in the middle of all this fear, all this pain, all this awful metal dark, another feeling rises. I’m not just trying to stay alive here. I’m fighting. For my life, yes, but also for more than that.
For Coyote Glen, with its pine air and gossip and warm lights in the windows.
For The Hollow, the women who closed ranks around me like I already belonged to them, Bill Granger’s grumpy kindness and Lani’s coffee-based therapy, and Ivy’s emotional hurricane energy, the men who made space for me before I even knew I needed somewhere to land.
For Ryder, Zane, Finn, the place I can breathe.
Cole turns away again, pacing toward the door, attention split now between me and whatever is happening beyond these walls.
Good.
Split attention is how people lose.
Behind my back, I shift my wrist again, and the loosened tie gives another tiny bit.
My pulse jumps, but I keep my face calm.
Inside, though, I feel it with startling clarity. I’m not just surviving this. I’m fighting for my place in the world.
For the town.
For them.
And I am absolutely not letting this man take any of it from me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ryder
The door doesn’t open so muchas it gives way under force, metal shrieking as my boot drives through the lock, and Zane catches the edge before it can slam back down. The sound tears through the quiet, sharp and final, and then we’re moving.
Three bodies crossing the threshold in the same breath, the same intention, precise and violent, held tight beneath control.
Cole turns as we enter, already shifting his weight, already calculating, but I see the moment it lands. The fraction of a second where his expectations fracture. He thought I’d come alone. He thought arrogance would walk me straight into his hands.
Instead, he gets all of us.
The space closes in the second I step inside. Cold air, stale and metallic, clings to the back of my throat, thick with oil and a sensation that hasn’t seen daylight in too long. It’s wrong in a way that settles low in my chest, instinct pulling tight as my gaze tracks the room.
And then… honey, wildflowers. It cuts through everything else as a line drawn straight to her. I feel it before I see her, my body locking onto that scent with a certainty that drowns outthe rest of the room, the rest of the world narrowing to a single point.
Aurora.
