Chapter 52
Chapter Fifty-Two
Artemis
One week after the bonding, the screen door banged open hard enough to rattle the hinges and send Gumbo's head snapping up from his doze.
Remy burst into the kitchen where I was washing dishes, his golden curls wild and tangled from the wind, his chest heaving like he'd sprinted the whole way from wherever he'd been.
His amber eyes blazed with something between excitement and disbelief as he grabbed my shoulders, suds and all, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.
"Cher!" His voice cracked on the word, pitched high with triumph. "Mon Dieu, the lawyer just called. They served Crescent Holdings the papers this morning!"
My heart stuttered in my chest, missing a beat before slamming back into rhythm so hard it hurt.
The dish I'd been holding slipped from my nerveless fingers and shattered against the bottom of the sink, sending soapy water splashing across my shirt, but I barely noticed. "They... they actually did it?"
"They did it." His grin spread across his face, fierce and almost feral, showing too many teeth to be entirely civilized.
His whole body vibrated with barely contained energy, like a live wire sparking against wet ground.
"Harassment claims, fraudulent survey documentation, pressure tactics on other property owners—all of it, cher.
Every dirty thing they've done." He shook me gently, his thumbs rubbing circles on my shoulders.
"Delphine said their legal team has seventy-two hours to respond, and based on what she's seen, they're going to have a very hard time wiggling out of this one. "
I braced my wet hands against the edge of the sink, my knuckles going white around the porcelain, trying to steady myself against the sudden dizziness.
After months of documentation, of harassment, of feeling like David facing down Goliath with nothing but a slingshot and stubborn hope—we'd actually done it. We'd taken the fight to them.
"Where's Harper?" The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw by the emotion clawing at my throat. "And Silas?"
"Harper's at the distillery—I already called him, he's on his way.
" Remy's expression softened, some of the manic energy settling into something warmer, more tender.
He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his callused fingertips lingering against my cheek like he couldn't bear to stop touching me.
"Silas is out checking the property lines again.
You know how he gets when he's worried—all that prowling and watching.
" His mouth quirked into something between a smile and a grimace.
"It's happening, Artemis. We're actually going to win this. "
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly it ached like a bruise beneath my ribs, like a wound that had never quite healed.
But I'd learned a long time ago that wanting something didn't make it true.
The next two days passed in a blur of nervous energy that left us all raw and snappish.
Delphine LeBlanc called with updates—and despite being only twenty-eight, fresh out of Tulane Law and barely three years into her practice, the young Alpha had already earned a reputation that made corporate lawyers twice her age break into nervous sweats.
Her voice was a honeyed drawl that somehow made even legal jargon sound like a lullaby, though the steel beneath it could cut glass.
Crescent Holdings' lawyers had requested an extension, which she'd denied with what I imagined was vicious satisfaction.
They'd attempted to file a counter-suit, which had been thrown out before it even hit a judge's desk.
They were scrambling, she said, and scrambling meant desperate.
"Desperate how?" I'd asked, gripping the phone tight enough to make my knuckles ache, pacing the length of my small kitchen until Gumbo hissed at me for disturbing his nap.
"Desperate like a cottonmouth backed into a corner, cher.
" Her voice went hard as flint, all the honey burned away to reveal the backbone beneath.
"Which means they might try something stupid before they accept defeat.
You keep your eyes open. You keep those Alphas of yours close—closer than close. "
I'd relayed the warning to my pack that night, all of us gathered around my tiny kitchen table with untouched cups of coffee going cold between us.
Harper had gone quiet in that dangerous way of his, the way that meant he was calculating threats and responses with military precision.
His dark eyes had turned cold, distant, cataloging every possible angle of attack while his jaw worked silently.
Silas had simply nodded once, his pale eyes going flat and predatory as a hunting cat's, and I'd noticed him patrolling the property more often after that—appearing and disappearing like the ghost the townspeople called him, always watching, always waiting, always ready.
Remy had tried to keep things light, strumming his guitar and cracking jokes that fell flat in the tension-thick air.
But even he couldn't quite hide the coiled energy beneath his easy smile, the way his eyes kept drifting to the windows and the darkness beyond, the way his fingers never quite stopped moving even when the music stopped.
We were all waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It dropped on the third day, while I was on the porch watching the sunset paint the bayou in shades of orange and gold, trying to find peace in the familiar beauty of it all. The black SUV pulled into my drive without warning.
It wasn't a vehicle I recognized. Too new, too polished, too expensive for Magnolia Bend—the kind of car that belonged in a corporate parking garage in New Orleans or Houston, not a dirt road in the Louisiana backcountry.
The windows were tinted dark as midnight, dark enough to hide whatever lurked inside, and something cold settled in my stomach.
Gumbo, who had been dozing by my feet with his massive tail curled around the porch railing, lifted his scarred head and let out a low, rumbling hiss that vibrated through the wooden boards beneath my rocking chair.
His eyes fixed on the SUV with the intensity of a creature who recognized a threat.
I saw his muscles bunch beneath his armored hide, saw his claws dig shallow grooves into the weathered wood.
The driver's door opened with a soft click that seemed unnaturally loud in the evening quiet.
A man stepped out—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a charcoal suit that fit him like it had been sewn directly onto his body.
Probably cost more than my truck, more than everything I owned put together.
His hair was silver at the temples, swept back from a face that was handsome in a polished, corporate way—all sharp angles and practiced charm.
He moved like a man who'd never been told no in his life, each step deliberate and confident as he approached my porch, his expensive shoes somehow staying immaculate despite the dust.
He also looked familiar, though it took me a moment to place him through the haze of adrenaline suddenly flooding my system. The photographs in the legal documents. The name stamped across the harassment complaints in bold black letters, the name I'd come to hate with a passion that surprised me.
Richard Hartley. Senior Vice President of Acquisitions for Crescent Holdings. The man who'd been orchestrating the campaign against my land from the very beginning. The spider at the center of the web.
"Ms. Devereaux." His smile was wide and white and completely empty, never reaching his eyes—they remained cold, calculating, assessing me like I was a piece of property to be appraised and acquired.
"I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting in person.
Though I feel like I know you quite well by now. "
I stayed in my rocking chair, refusing to give him the satisfaction of rising, refusing to show any sign of the fear coiling in my gut.
One hand dropped to rest on Gumbo's scarred head, feeling the gator's rumble intensify beneath my palm, vibrating up through my arm like a warning growl made physical.
"I know who you are." I kept my voice flat, steady, even though my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, even though every instinct I had was screaming at me to run.
"And you're trespassing on private property. "
"I was hoping we could have a civil conversation.
" He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, smart enough not to come closer with twelve feet of apex predator watching his every move with unblinking reptilian patience.
His polished shoes looked absurd against the weathered wood and Louisiana dirt, like a peacock strutting through a barnyard.
"Professional to professional, you might say.
Before this unfortunate situation gets any more. .. unpleasant for everyone involved."
"The situation's already unpleasant." I scratched behind Gumbo's eye ridge, feeling his low growl vibrate through my fingertips—not quite a purr, more like a promise of violence waiting to happen.
"Your company has been harassing me for months.
You've tampered with surveys, threatened my neighbors, tried to bribe the parish assessor—oh yes, I know about that—and used every dirty trick in the book to steal my land out from under me.
" I let my lip curl with contempt I didn't have to fake.
"So forgive me if I'm fresh out of civil, Mr. Hartley.
You used up my last drop of it when I got your letter. "