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"Boudoir." It falls out of my mouth like something I dropped.

"Yes, sugar-plum." The smile that crosses his face is the most frightening thing I have ever seen, and I have been zip-tied to a bed for three days. "We're going to complete the collection now."

He reaches for the nearest camera, and there are several to choose from—they're arranged around him like offerings on an altar, like a congregation waiting to be called.

It's a manual. Not digital. But it has film in it, and I don't even need to check to know this.

My mother never kept an empty camera. Not one. Not ever. That was her first commandment and her last, and she followed it with a devotion that would have shamed most clergy.

There wasn't a single moment in the life of this house where a camera sat unready to capture a moment.

Even if that one has been sittin' on that table collectin' dust for seven years, I know it has film in it.

Marcus removes the lens cap, points it at me, starts shooting, and says, "Take off your clothes. And do it slow."

CHAPTER 7

The ride back feels quicker, and bumpier, and seven times I feel like my chest is going to explode with anxiety. I try Savannah over and over again.

She never picks up.

"It's fine," Cash says, in a voice that comes off totally believable, even though he's lyin'. "She's fine."

What I don't hear him say is, she's safe.

Because she's not.

All Cash is sayin' is… one thing at a time. All we can do now is manage this night one crisis at a time.

I don't know his full plan for what's goin' down tonight that will shift the world order of the Montana badlands, it's far, far too complicated for me. You gotta know things from birth to pull off somethin' like this.

Somethin' so big, it rocks fortunes.

Something so wide, it tilts government.

Forces that powerful have their own currency and it's not counted in dollars.

It's counted in oil.

Mike's messages buzz my phone over and over again. Over and over. One after the other. Threats piled upon threats.

Straight ugly ones too.

I'm gonna string Dusty's little woman up by her wrists and give all my boys a turn.

I'm gonna gut Diesel's old lady like a pig.

I'm gonna bend Crow over and make him remember what it felt like to be four.

I block him.

I don't have time for Badlands shit.

Everything about that place was rotten anyway. Dirty and evil from the inside out.

It can all burn in hell.

Cash pushes the truck hard down the dirt road, headlights jumpin' over ruts and rock, shadow of the ranch comin' up in the distance like a sentinel made of logs.