Eight minutes.
I breathe.
Slowly.
In for four.
Out for four.
And I watch through the blinds.
The two men move through the property as if they own it. Like they have been here before, or at least have studied the maps carefully enough to know where to go. They pause at the generator housing and photograph that too. Then they walk the perimeter of the primary equipment shed, and one of them tries the doorknob, finds it locked, and notes something on his phone before moving on.
There’s no rush in the way they move.
That’s the part that twists my stomach the hardest.
There is no panic, no urgency.
They didn’t come here tonight to steal anything. This is reconnaissance. A slow, deliberate study of the property, the access points, the weak spots, every detail they might want later for whatever comes next.
My attention keeps snagging on the folder tucked under my arm and the documents inside it that I still haven’t read, becausemy father explicitly told me not to. Then my mind catches on his text message…
Dad:There’s something I need to tell you about the mine. About a deal I made years ago.
He still hasn’t told me. Dad’s been circling it, scheduling conversations and then canceling them, showing up at the clubhouse for monthly Sunday dinners with that tightness around his eyes that I recognize as the face he wears when he is managing something he doesn’t know how to say. I’ve been patient with him. I’ve been trying to be. But standing here in the dark of his office while strangers photograph his equipment bays, I feel the patience wearing thin at the edges.
Suddenly, a low vibration rolls through the desert night, so deep it almost feels like it’s coming up through the concrete beneath my palm rather than down the road, reverberating through the nighttime air.
For half a second, my brain doesn’t understand.
Then it does.
Harleys.
Plural.
The rumble grows fast, swelling from a distant tremor into something bigger, louder, unmistakable, and the relief that slams into my chest is so sudden it almost knocks the breath out of me.
They came.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, my body moving before my brain can catch up. I surge up from behind the desk, my heart leaping into my throat while I rush to the blinds and peel them back just enough to peer through.
Headlights blaze through the main gate while bikes pour onto the property, engines roaring hard enough to tear through thestillness of the mine yard with Will’s truck barreling in behind them.
There’s no hesitation.
No slowing down.
Just raw, aggressive speed while the club floods the perimeter.
For a split second, the sight of them makes my knees go weak.
I’m safe.The thought flashes through me so fast it almost hurts.
Then another one crashes right over the top of it.The men.
My stomach drops, and I duck instantly, dipping back down below the window as if the movement might erase the fact that I was just standing there like a damn lit beacon.
