“Make sure he doesn’t notice you.”
“Got it.”
Black worked his way into the crowd. As big as he was, the man could melt into it like nobody’s business.
The front door opened, letting in a spill of cooler night air and the brief wash of headlights from the gravel lot.
Law had been watching Sage, catching the shift in him before he fully understood it.
A man stepped inside and paused just past the threshold while the door swung shut behind him.
Unlike most people walking into a place like this, he didn’t glance toward the bar or hesitate to get his bearings.
Instead, he stood there a moment, composed, letting his eyes move slowly across the crowded dance hall.
Even from across the room, Law could see he didn’t quite belong.
Pressed shirt. Dark jacket. Crisp lines that hadn’t seen a ranch in their life.
The man lifted one hand and adjusted the knot of his tie with an easy, practiced motion before stepping farther inside. His gaze moved across the bar, the dance floor, the tables along the wall—
—and then stopped.
Law followed the line of sight.
Straight to the back corner.
Straight to Sage.
No hesitation after that. The man crossed the room at an easy pace, weaving through dancers and clusters of people without breaking stride.
By the time he reached the back tables, Sage had already gone still.
The man stopped beside the table. For a brief moment, the two of them simply looked at each other.
Then he pulled out the chair across from Sage and sat down.
Black appeared beside Law a moment later and handed him a bottle.
“Thanks.”
Black took a swallow from his own beer, then followed Law’s line of sight across the room.
His eyes settled on Sage’s table.
“Who’s that?”
Law took a long pull from the bottle, the cold beer cutting through the dry desert heat still lingering in his throat. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes never leaving the two men at the table.
“Dunno.”
The bottle lowered but stayed in Law’s hand, his attention fixed on the back corner of the room. From this distance, the music and the crowd swallowed whatever the two men said to each other, but words weren’t necessary to read the shape of the conversation.
The man who’d just arrived sat easily in the chair, one arm resting along the back like he had all the time in the world. Calm. Comfortable. The kind of posture that said he controlled the pace of whatever was happening at that table.
Sage looked different.
Not scared—Sage wasn’t built that way. But tight. Shoulders drawn in slightly, his body leaning forward as if every muscle was braced beneath the surface.
