I stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“Listen,” he said, stepping closer, voice dropping even though we were alone out here. “If you put them in the system,we could both get… looked at. Hard. Keep it quiet for now. I haven’t figured out the next move.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, the desert wind whipping my hair across my face. “Now I get why this position was open. What happened to the last person? This hasn’t been going on for a week. This is old.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just looked past me toward the horizon, jaw tight. “The last one walked. That’s why they bumped your starting salary. Keep your mouth shut, Sienna. For both our sakes. Don’t make this more dramatic than it has to be.”
He reached for the cooler in my truck bed before I could argue, hauling it toward his own vehicle like the conversation was over.
I stood there in the blazing sun, tank top plastered to me, grime under my nails, and felt the weight of it all settle heavy on my chest. The wedding was days away. Regan’s texts were still lighting up my phone with promises of strippers and bad decisions. And somewhere back in town, Mason was probably still stewing over the “date” I’d let him think I was bringing.
But right now, none of that mattered.
Because someone was poisoning the water under our feet, my boss was scared, and I was standing in the middle of it with dirt on my hands and a very bad feeling that walking away wasn’t going to be an option.
The drive back to my apartment was a blur of dust and radio static I didn’t really hear. By the time I pulled into the lot, the sun was already dipping low, painting the stucco walls orange and making the whole complex look deceptively peaceful. I killed the engine, grabbed my gear bag, and trudged up the stairs like my boots weighed fifty pounds each. None of this sat right. None of it. The samples, Dr. Harlan’s scared-rabbit eyes, the way he’d snatched the cooler like it was evidence in a mob trial. I’d known the raise was too good to be true the second I signedthe offer letter. Environmental field work in the desert doesn’t come with that kind of money unless someone’s buying silence. And I’m not the kind of person who can look the other way for a paycheck. That’s not why I got into this. I wanted to protect the water, the soil, the people who drank from it. Not play cover-up for old-money assholes.
Inside, the place still smelled faintly of spilled water and cat chaos from last night. I didn’t bother turning on more than the kitchen light. Stripped off the grimy tank top and jeans right there in the living room and headed straight for the shower. The water was cold on purpose. I stood under it until my teeth chattered, watching red-brown dust swirl down the drain in lazy spirals. It felt like the desert was trying to crawl back inside me, like it knew I was about to make a stupid decision and wanted to remind me who was boss.
When I stepped out, towel wrapped around me, I couldn’t help it. I padded barefoot to the back patio door, slid it open, and stared at the small fire-escape landing where Bandit had vanished. The railing was still scuffed from his escape. No gray fur. No jingle of his bell. Just empty concrete and the faint smell of creosote on the evening breeze.
Maybe Bandit had it right. Shit’s too good to be true out here, so he cut and run. Smart little asshole.
My phone was face-down on the counter. I’d ignored the string of texts from Mason all afternoon—Cat back yet?You good?Let me know if you need help looking.—each one making my stomach flip in a way I didn’t have the bandwidth to unpack. I left them unread.
I popped the cap on a cheap cold tequila I’d bought on sale last week, took a long pull straight from the bottle, and winced at the burn. It didn’t help. The apartment felt too quiet without Bandit’s constant growling, meowing, and dramatic pacing like he was personally offended by every closed door. I needed themoney. I’d just signed a year’s lease on this place, and moving again wasn’t an option. But I also couldn’t let the aquifer get poisoned. That was the kind of thing they made Erin Brockovich movies about—people getting sick, kids with rashes, whole families fighting cancer because some rich bastards decided profit mattered more than groundwater. People could die. Real people. Not numbers on a report.
I sat on the couch in my towel, laptop balanced on my knees, and typedOakley Companyinto the search bar before I could talk myself out of it.
Sure as shit.
The first article that popped up had a photo. There he was—clean-cut dentist smile, pressed button-down, the same guy from the martini bar with his arm around Rylee like he owned the world. His last name was Oakley. Not the heir apparent, but related. Cousin. Board member. Family money that stretched back generations and included half the industrial holdings along the northern aquifer. The same land where we’d been pulling those spiked water samples.
“Shit,” I muttered, slamming the laptop shut so hard the screen rattled. “What the hell have I walked into?”
My pulse was hammering now, the tequila sour in the back of my throat. I couldn’t sit here anymore. The walls were too close, the silence too loud, the what-ifs piling up like bad data. I needed air. Real air. Santa Fe was safe enough at dusk, nightlife spilling out onto the sidewalks, music drifting from open doors. I could walk, clear my head, maybe think straight for five damn minutes.
I tugged on a pair of sneakers, yanked my damp hair up under a faded ball cap, and grabbed a small baggie of catnip from the counter—just in case the little traitor decided to show himself tonight. The door clicked shut behind me, and I headed down the stairs into the warm evening glow, the desert windtugging at the hem of my tank top like it was trying to pull me somewhere I wasn’t ready to go.
The sun had slipped behind the mountains hours ago, leaving the sky a deep bruised purple that bled into the streetlights. I kept walking anyway, sneakers scuffing the sidewalk, ball cap pulled low like that would somehow hide the mess in my head. The desert night air was still warm, carrying the faint smell of mesquite and distant barbecue smoke, but it did nothing to loosen the knot in my chest.
I couldn’t stop replaying it all. That professor back in grad school—the one who’d pulled me aside after my thesis defense, eyes intense, promising me “real-world experience” on a cutting-edge groundwater project. I thought it was my big break. Turns out it was just his excuse to fuck me in motel rooms between lectures while his fiancée planned their registry at Crate & Barrel. I’d been so stupidly flattered, so convinced I was special, until the day she showed up at the lab with tears and a ring and the kind of rage that made me pack my shit and run three states away. Fresh start, I’d told myself. New job. New town. New me.
Except the new me was currently dodging texts from a tattooed biker who’d gone from “angry one-night stress relief in the desert” to… whatever the hell we were doing now. Mason. The sidewalk kiss still lingered on my lips like a brand. The way he’d growled about saving him a dance, the way his fists had clenched when I dropped the “date” bomb. It wasn’t a relationship. We hadn’t even labeled it a fling. It was just blurred lines and bad decisions and the kind of heat that made me forget I was supposed to be keeping my head down. And Bandit—God, that furry little traitor. I’d left catnip in my pocket like some pathetic talisman, but the apartment felt like a tomb without his chaos. The job… Jesus. The job was the worst part. Dr. Harlan’s scared face, the Oakley name popping up like a bad omen, Rylee’s husband tied to the family that was probably dumpingchemicals into the aquifer while I stood there with dirt under my nails and a fat raise that suddenly felt like hush money.
It was all too much. Regan acting like we’d been ride-or-die since kindergarten when we’d literally just met through Tank’s fiancée. The way she lit up my phone like I was already one of the girls. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere. Maybe I should just go back, grab Dolores the cactus, pack the duffel I’d kept half-ready since the professor disaster, and split again. Hit the road before the Oakley thing blew up or Mason decided to push for more than blurry lines or the Royal Bastards decided I knew too much. This wasn’t the fresh start I’d sold myself. It was the same old trap with better scenery.
Headlights washed over me from behind, slow and deliberate. A big-ass black SUV rolled up alongside the curb, engine purring like it was stalking prey. My stomach dropped straight to my sneakers. Oh shit. This is just what I need. Kidnapped and trafficked in New Mexico. Perfect ending to a perfect week. I gripped the catnip baggie tighter, already calculating how fast I could sprint toward the nearest open bar when?—
The passenger window rolled down and a wave of giggling, perfume, and tequila hit me like a glitter bomb.
Regan leaned across the console, grinning like a lunatic, a plastic cup of something pink sloshing in her hand. “Please, you’re being dramatic. Get in.”
Tina—Regan’s loud best friend I’d met once at the clubhouse—poked her head between the seats from the back. “No, it’s not the day for excuses, Sienna. Get. In.”
No choice. The back door flew open and five screeching girls spilled halfway out, all body glitter and smeared lipstick and enough cleavage to blind a man. They were drunk off their asses, giggling like hyenas, hands grabbing for me before I could even back up.
“What the fuck—body glitter? Really?” I yelped as they hauled me toward the open door.
