Chapter 31 Peyton
PEYTON
The decision to leave didn’t feel like running. It felt like strategy.
We weren’t fleeing because we were weak. We were redeploying to protect the most valuable asset we had.
It had been a rough week. Seven days of constant phone calls, insurance forms, and interviews with the fire chief and the police.
They had nothing. No evidence, no leads, just a pile of ash where a livelihood used to be.
I had my suspicions—I knew straight down to my bones that dear old dad was behind it—but knowing wasn’t proof.
And without proof, sticking around just meant giving him another swing at us.
I sat in the cab of my truck, the engine idling near the construction site where I knew Judd would be. The mountain air was crisp, smelling of damp earth and pine. For years, this smell had meant home. Now, it just smelled like the past.
Judd pulled up a minute later, his beat-up Ford splashing through the mud. He climbed out, wiping his hands on his jeans, and leaned against my door. “You look like hell, bro. Fire trouble? I heard about Dalton’s shop.”
“Something like that,” I said. I didn’t smile back.
Judd’s grin faded. He knew me too well. We’d built Summit Brothers from a single mower and a lot of sweat. He was the brother I chose.
“What is it, Peyton?”
“I’m out, Judd,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “I’m selling. Today. Right now.”
Judd blinked, processing. He looked at the truck, then at the road leading back to my house. “Is everyone okay? Is Dalton?”
“Dalton’s fine,” I assured him. “They both are.”
“Both?”
“Theo,” I said, the name tasting like hope even in the middle of this mess. “Our omega. We found him in Florida.” I took a breath, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. “But we can’t stay here, Judd. My father… the fire wasn’t an accident. And things have changed. We’re expecting.”
Judd’s eyes widened. “A baby? You and…”
“All of us,” I said firmly. “But I’m not raising a kid within striking distance of my father. I need to get them to Florida. Today.”
Judd let out a long breath, a puff of white in the cold air.
He looked past my truck at the project behind him—a sprawling mountain estate of glass and reclaimed timber that was finally, after months of construction, standing tall.
But the grounds were still a disaster of raw, red-clay scars and massive piles of turned-over earth.
We designed it to be our masterpiece: tiered stone gardens, manicured fescue, and showstopping water features that looked like the mountain itself had carved them.
“What about the contract?” Judd asked, his voice thick. “This place… it’s the biggest one we’ve ever landed. You spent weeks on the bid.”
“It’s yours,” I said, gesturing to the expanse of dirt.
“The equipment, the crew, the client list. All of it. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers and overnight them.
Buy me out, Judd. I don’t care about the numbers, and I don’t care if it takes you ten years or twenty to pay it off.
Send me a check when the seasons are good, and don’t worry about it when they aren’t. ”
“Peyton, man, you helped build this company from the ground up,” Judd protested, his hand white-knuckled on the door frame. “I can’t just take it.”
“I was the money and the muscle, Judd. I handled the books and broke my back digging the trenches. But you?” I looked at the site again, seeing the vision he’d sketched out on a dozen napkins.
“You’re the one with the talent. You’re the one who sees the art in the dirt.
You don’t need me over your shoulder anymore. ”
Judd looked at the raw earth, then back at me, his expression crumbling.
“This doesn’t change a thing between us,” I added, reaching out to grab the back of his neck.
“We’re brothers of the heart, Judd. That doesn’t stay behind in the mountains.
You get this place finished, you make it look like the Eden you promised them, and then you get your ass down to Sugar Beach to meet the baby. You hear me?”
Judd nodded slowly, a rough, watery laugh escaping him. He reached through the window, gripping my shoulder hard. “You know I will. Get them safe, brother. I’m keeping the name, though. I like Summit Brothers.”
Thirty minutes later, I pulled the truck up to the ruins of The Ink Well.
The charred remains looked even worse in the daylight.
A chaotic mess of blackened timber and shattered glass.
I parked the truck but kept the engine running.
I wasn’t planning on staying long. The silver sedan, my father’s watchers, sat idling down the block.
I glared at them until they looked away, then got out, standing close to Dalton as he approached the rubble.
Gabe was waiting for us, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. He jumped when he saw me, his eyes darting to the car that was still sitting there from yesterday.
“Dalton,” Gabe said, his voice cracking. “The insurance agent called. He said you authorized me as a contact as part owner of the business to talk to them.”
“Gabe, breathe,” Dalton said, stepping forward. I stood just behind him, a silent wall between my beta and the rest of the world.
“What the heck man?,” Gabe choked out. “Since when do I have authorization to make decisions for the business?”
“Since now,” Dalton said. “Because the fire took the shop, we’re at a crossroads. I’m staying in Florida permanently. I want you to buy me out.”
Gabe wiped soot from his forehead. “Buy you out? Dalton, there is no business right now.”
“There is,” Dalton corrected. “The insurance will cover the rebuild. But I’m not the one who should be rebuilding it. You are.”
I watched Gabe’s face crumble in confusion. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want you to buy me out,” Dalton said, his voice steady. “We can work out the numbers later—no interest, pay me over ten years, I don’t care. But I need you to take full ownership. The name, the shop, everything.”
Gabe stared at him. “You’re serious. You’re really leaving.”
“I have to,” Dalton said, glancing back at me, then at the truck where Theo was waiting.
“But I’m not leaving my people hanging. I’ve marked the clients in here who have unfinished large pieces.
” He handed Gabe a folded notebook, his client ledger.
“I’ll come back in a few months, once things settle, to finish them.
I won’t leave them halfway done. Or heck, maybe they’ll want to come to Florida and have a vacation while I finish their pieces.
I don’t know, but I want to make sure they’re taken care of. ”
“You’d come back?” Gabe asked, clutching the ledger.
“Yeah. To finish the work,” Dalton promised. “But the shop? It’s yours to run now, partner. You’ve earned it. That book has my whole client list. It’s a backup of the one that would have been in the shop which I’m guessing is toast now. I want you to have it.”
Gabe looked down at the book, then nodded slowly. “Okay. Okay, I can do that.”
“I know you can. Peyton’s lawyer will draw up the papers to make things official,” Dalton said. He clapped Gabe on the shoulder. “Call me when the adjuster gives you the final numbers.”
Dalton turned back to me. “Ready?”
“Always,” I said.
We turned to go, but the low hum of an engine made me freeze. The silver sedan waiting down the street crawled forward, blocking the exit from the lot. The back door opened, and Elias Claybourne stepped out.
He looked exactly as he always did—immaculate suit, silver hair perfectly coiffed, eyes like chips of flint. He didn’t look at the ruin of the shop. He looked at me.
“Get in the truck,” I told Dalton, my voice low and dangerous. “Get in and lock the doors.”
“Peyton—”
“Now, Dalton.”
Dalton hesitated only a fraction of a second before climbing into the cab with Theo. I heard the locks click home. I stepped forward, putting myself physically between my father and the truck.
Elias stopped a few yards away, wrinkling his nose at the smell of wet ash. “I expected you to have left by now. Or are you just enjoying the view of your failure?”
“It’s not my failure,” I said, unable to keep the growl out of my voice. “It’s your crime. I know you did this.”
Elias waved a dismissive hand. “Proof is for courts, Peyton. Reality is for men who make decisions. And the reality is that this place was a blight. Just like him.” He jerked his chin toward the truck. “I thought I made it clear years ago that he wasn’t welcome in this family.”
“You made it clear you were a monster,” I snapped. “You threatened him. You drove him away because you couldn’t stand that I chose a beta over your ‘legacy’. You couldn’t manipulate him, so you tried to destroy him.”
“I tried to save you!” Elias roared, his composure cracking for the first time. “He offers you nothing! No lineage, no status, no future. I cleared the path for you to find a proper mate, and you drag him back here like a stray dog?”
“He’s not a stray,” I said, stepping closer, letting my alpha aura flare hot and aggressive. “He’s my partner. And you didn’t save anything. You lost your son the day you threatened him.”
Elias sneered, straightening his cuffs. “You’ll be back. When you realize that love doesn’t pay for the lifestyle you’re used to. When you get tired of playing house with a dead end.”
“I haven’t needed your money for a long time.I’m never coming back,” I promised. “And if you ever come near us—near any of us—again, I won’t just leave. I’ll burn your whole world down, and I won’t hide behind a hired torch to do it.”
I turned my back on him, the ultimate insult to an alpha of his standing, and walked to the truck. I climbed in, slamming the door on his shouting.
“Drive,” Dalton said, his hand finding mine on the console. His grip was white-knuckled.
I put the truck in gear and floored it. We swerved around the sedan, kicking mud onto its pristine paint, and roared onto the main road.
We drove past the turnoff to the estate without slowing down. We hit the highway, the mountains rising up in the rearview mirror like a barrier we had finally crossed.
“Goodbye,” Theo whispered from the back, looking out the window, hidden and safe.
“Good riddance,” Dalton added.
I squeezed Dalton’s hand. “Next stop, Sugar Beach.”
And as the miles stretched out between us and the mountains, the scent of home finally started to smell like salt air and citrus again.