I keep the photograph. The police don't need to see it, and neither does the rental company.
I grab her press bag from where she dropped it by the rear tire and toss it in the truck.
She takes the passenger seat like she's been sitting in it her whole life, and the familiarity of that, the ease with which she folds herself into my space, sends a jolt through me that I don't examine too closely.
We drive to the motel in silence, stopping briefly to pick up a new laptop to replace the one stolen. The Santa Fe night presses against the windows, city lights giving way to darkness as we move toward the outskirts.
"They used Grant's death photo," Kenna says. Her voice is quiet, the analytical distance stripped back, and what's underneath is raw. "They printed a picture of a man dying in the dirt and used it as a warning, like his death is a marketing tool."
My knuckles go white on the wheel.
"That tells us something," she says. "Whoever broke into my car has access to that image. It wasn't released to press. It wasn't in any public record. Whoever has it was at Las Cruces and had access to the arena floor or the camera footage."
"Merrick's people."
"Merrick's people. Which means the intimidation is coming from the top, not from a low-level handler trying to cover his tracks."
She's right. This isn't some nervous bull handler sending a message. This is coordinated and calculated, the same operation that killed Grant and Tyler and made Vic disappear.
Back in Albuquerque, I park close to the entrance, under a working light. We walk to our room in silence, and I stay close enough that my arm brushes hers with every step.
She unlocks the door and turns to face me in the gap before I can follow her inside.
"Are you going to spend the rest of tonight hovering over me because you're worried, or are you going to take me to bed?"
"Yes."
The ghost of a smile crosses her face, a real one, brief and unguarded, and the sight of it lands somewhere deep in my gut.
I answer her by backing her through the door, kicking it shut with my boot, and turning the deadbolt without taking my mouth off hers. The lock clicks and my hand is already in her hair, pulling her head back until her throat is exposed and her pulse is hammering under my teeth.
The first time I touched her was about wanting. This is about keeping.
I bite down on the tendon in her neck. Not gentle. She hisses and grabs my belt with both hands, yanking me closer, and the sound she makes when I press her into the wall with my hips is permission and demand rolled into one.
"You're not leaving my sight." I say it into her throat. "Not tonight. Not tomorrow."
"That's not a conversation. That's a decree."
"Take it up with management." I strip off her clothes. My hand is between her thighs before the denim hits the floor, and she's already wet, already there, her body answering the threat the same way mine does — with adrenaline that needs somewhere to go.
I don't ease into her. I work her hard and fast with my fingers, my palm grinding against her clit, watching her face while the pleasure overrides the fear. Her back arches off the wall and her mouth falls open on a sound that bounces off the cheap motel ceiling.
"That's mine," I tell her. "That sound. Nobody else gets that."
"Possessive bastard."
"You're just figuring that out?"
I drop to my knees. Not to worship — to own. My mouth replaces my hand and I pin her hips to the wall when she tries to buck against my face. I take my time with it because making Kenna fall apart with my tongue is the one thing that shuts my brain off completely.
She comes with both hands fisted in my hair and my name cracking apart in her mouth. I don't let up. I keep going until her legs are shaking and she's pulling at my shoulders, oversensitive, trying to get away from the pressure.
I stand, lift her, and she wraps around me on instinct. I carry her to the bed and drop her on the mattress hard enough to bounce.
"Colt—"
"I'm not done." I strip my shirt, my belt, my jeans. She watches from the bed with flushed skin and dark eyes and her chest heaving, and the sight of Kenna wrecked and waiting in a bed I put her in does something territorial to my bloodstream.
