Page 100 of Breaking His Exile

“Gemma. Stop.”

The side-by-side slowed. Gemma pulled onto a flat stretch of grass beside the track and killed the engine. The sudden silence was absolute. Frosted grass, dark timber, the sky lightening to pearl above the eastern ridge.

Gemma didn’t look at her. She reached into her jacket pocket and came out with a pistol.

She pointed it at Rainey’s chest.

Rainey went very still. The anger that had carried her out of the guest room, across the yard, into this vehicle — it didn’t vanish. It crystallized. Became something colder and sharper.

“You work for Mal,” she said.

It wasn’t a question. She already knew.

Gemma smiled. It wasn’t the same warm smile Rainey had come to know. “Mal sent me to watch River six weeks ago.”

Six weeks. Right after she and Sylvie Granger ran. “Because I left?”

Gemma nodded. “He knew you’d contact your brother eventually. Everyone runs to family when things get bad. Especially someone like you.”

Rainey’s throat closed. Six weeks. Gemma had been inside Valor Ridge for six weeks, sleeping in River’s bed, eating at Walker’s table, learning the ranch’s rhythms and weaknesses from the inside.

“Dating River gave me access to everything,” Gemma continued. “The security layout. The routines. Who was protecting you, how they were doing it, when they changed shifts.” She adjusted her grip on the pistol. A small movement. Professional. “I knew the minute Evander Cole walked through that gate with you. I knew the minute Brandt showed up. I’ve been texting Mal updates since the day I arrived.”

Behind them, Tilly had gone utterly still. Rainey could feel the dog’s presence without looking — the weight of her attention, focused now on Gemma with an intensity that raised the hair on Rainey’s arms.

“River trusted you,” Rainey said. The words came out scraped raw.

Something flickered across Gemma’s face. Fast. Gone. “River trusts everyone. It’s his best quality and his worst one.” She gestured with the gun. “We’re getting out. Now.”

Rainey didn’t move. “Where are we going?”

“Turnout about two miles east. Hobbs is waiting.”

Hobbs. The name dropped into Rainey’s stomach like a stone. The patient one. The one who set himself between you and the exit and waited.

Gemma climbed out of the driver’s seat, keeping the gun trained on Rainey. “Out. Slowly. Hands where I can see them.”

Rainey climbed down. She stood beside the side-by-side and looked at Gemma across three feet of grass and knew, with perfect clarity, that she was not getting out of this.

Tilly jumped down from the cargo bed and moved to Rainey’s side, her dark eyes fixed on Gemma.

“The dog stays in the vehicle,” Gemma said.

“She won’t.”

“Then I shoot her.”

Rainey looked at Tilly. The dog’s ears were flat against her skull. Her chest had gone still, the way it did when she was calculating distance.

“She stays with me,” Rainey said.

Gemma considered this. Then she nodded, once. “Fine. But if she moves toward me, she’s dead. Walk. East along the track. I’ll be right behind you.”

They walked. Rainey in front, Tilly at her heel, Gemma three paces back with the gun. The track wound through scattered pine and open grassland, climbing gradually toward a treeless rise. The sky had lightened to the color of old bone. No sun yet. No warmth.

The turnout came into view ahead — a flat gravel pullout where two tracks met, probably used by hunters or ranchers checking fence. Two vehicles waited. A black SUV. A motorcycle.

Two men stood beside the SUV. Hobbs, lean and patient, his posture the same unhurried stillness Rainey remembered from the clubhouse hallway. A man with long dark hair who must be Creed, judging by the bruises on his face.