Chapter 7 Beck
SEVEN
BECK
The confession hangs between us like smoke after a gunshot—thick, choking, impossible to wave away.
Sabrina’s curled against my chest now, knees tucked tight, breathing shallow like she’s afraid the next inhale might shatter her.
I keep one arm locked around her shoulders, the other hand resting heavy on her thigh, thumb tracing slow, mindless circles over the flannel. Grounding her. Grounding myself.
Because my pulse is hammering in a way it hasn’t since the day I buried my father and walked away from the life that came with him.
Family.
That word used to mean nothing to me. Empty space. A closed door. Until tonight.
Until her.
I tilt her chin up again. I force those hazel eyes—red-rimmed, terrified—to meet mine. “Say his full name,” I tell her. Voice low. Flat. The way I used to speak when I was still running security details for people who paid in cash and asked no questions.
She swallows. “Ethan Michael Hart.”
The room tilts.
I feel it in my gut first—cold recognition, sharp as an axe blade. Then the pieces slam together so hard I taste metal.
Ethan Hart.
Not some random CFO in Seattle.
Not just her brother.
The same Ethan Hart who walked into a bar in Missoula three winters ago, bought me a drink, and asked—in that smooth, practiced way rich men have—if I’d be interested in “occasional private work.” Off-books. High pay. No records. The kind of job that ends with someone disappearing quietly.
I said no.
He smiled like he expected it, left a hundred on the bar anyway, and walked out.
Two weeks later a logger up near Whitefish went missing. Never found. Case closed as exposure. I heard the rumors—black SUV, out-of-state plates, questions about a missing hard drive full of financials.
I didn’t connect it then.
I connect it now.
My hand freezes on her thigh.
Sabrina feels the shift. Her brows knit. “Beck?”
I don’t answer right away. Can’t. The room is suddenly too small, the fire too hot, her skin under my palm too fragile. I stand, and walk to the window. Stare out at the white wall of snow. Back still to her.
“Three winters ago,” I say. Words come out rough. “Your brother came through Timber Creek. Sat across from me at Rusty’s Bar. Offered me a job. Said he needed someone reliable. Someone who wouldn’t ask questions. Someone who could make problems… go away.”
Silence behind me. Thick. Terrible.
I turn.
She’s on her knees in the middle of the bed now, quilt clutched to her chest like armor. Face bloodless. “He wanted you to… to hurt someone?” she whispers.
“Not hurt.” I meet her eyes, and let her see the truth in them. “Kill. If necessary.”
Her hand flies to her mouth. Muffled sound—half sob, half choke.
“I said no,” I continue. “Walked out. Never saw him again. Until tonight. Until you said his name.”
She’s shaking her head. Slow. Disbelieving. “You’re saying… you met him? Here? Before you ever met me?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t—”
“I didn’t know.” The words scrape out. “I didn’t know he was your brother. I didn’t know he was the one chasing you. I didn’t know any of it until right fucking now.”
She stares at me like I’m a stranger. And maybe I am. Because the man who just buried himself inside her twice today—the man who promised to stand between her and anything that tried to hurt her—is the same man who once sat across a scarred bar table from the monster who raised her.
The irony is so sharp it bleeds.
Sabrina slides off the bed, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. She doesn’t come closer. Just stands there, arms wrapped around herself, looking small in my too-big shirt.
“Do you believe in fate?” she asks. Voice barely above a whisper.
“No.” I step toward her—slow, careful, like she might bolt. “I believe in choices. And right now the only choice that matters is the one I’m making. I choose you. I choose this. I choose to end whatever he started.”
Her eyes search mine—frantic, pleading. “What if he comes here? What if he recognizes you?”
“Then he’ll know exactly why he’s about to lose.” My voice drops darker. “Because the man he tried to hire to clean up his mess is the man who’s going to bury him instead.”
She flinches at the word bury.
I close the distance, and cup her face again. This time she doesn’t lean in. She just trembles under my palms.
“I’m not him,” I say. Fierce. “I’m not the man who ran from his family.
I’m not the man who’d sell out his sister to save his own skin.
I’m the man who’s going to keep you breathing.
Keep you safe. Keep you mine. And if that means putting a bullet between your brother’s eyes when the pass opens, then that’s what happens. ”
A tear slips down her cheek, and lands on my thumb. “I don’t want that,” she whispers. “I don’t want blood on your hands because of me.”
“Too late.” I brush the tear away. “My hands haven’t been clean in a long time, Sabrina. But they’ve never been dirty for someone I love.”
The word drops like a stone into still water.
Love.
I didn’t plan to say it. Didn’t even know it was true until it was out.
But it is.
Her breath catches, her eyes widening. Then—slowly, like she’s afraid it’ll break—she rises on her toes and presses her forehead to mine.
“I love you too,” she breathes. “And I’m terrified that’s going to get you killed.”
I wrap my arms around her, crushing her to my chest until there’s no space left for fear. “Then we make sure it doesn’t,” I murmur into her hair. “We wait out the storm. We plan. We arm up. And when the snow stops, we don’t run. We finish this.”
She nods against me. Small. Brave. Broken open and still choosing to stay.
Outside, the wind drops to an eerie hush.
Like the mountain itself is listening.
Like it knows what’s coming.
And for the first time since I carried her through that door, I don’t feel like we’re hiding. We’re waiting. Two against one. Love against betrayal.
A man who said no to murder once—and the woman who makes him willing to say yes.
Ethan Hart is coming. And when he gets here? He’s going to learn the hard way that some offers should never have been made. Some doors should never have been opened.
And some women?
Some women are worth burning the whole world down to keep.