Prime Stock (The Stock Squad #4)

Zero

They say you only fall in love once.

They never say how much it hurts.

Love. It sucks.

And when you lose it, like really lose it—and all other forms of love—you end up in a place where footsteps echo down a concrete corridor, where chains clink and guards keep that wary step back.

The air in here is always cold and damp, like the walls were bleeding out every secret ever locked behind them. And someone like Finn Wilde? He was just another ghost in a Victorian relic that reeked of regret, cheap bleach, and old stone.

Finn never reacted to the sights and sounds in this hellhole. He’d just watch everyone like the apex predator he had fought to become. That’s why they left him alone. Everyone knew not to mess with the inmate in cell twenty-three.

Even handcuffed and shackled like a dog, you’d know he was trouble.

The guy who got no visitors. Got no calls.

And friends? Ha.

The only one who’d bothered about Finn was the ex. From the other side of the country, she’d send the odd letter and regularly top up his canteen account to buy rations—instant coffee, toothpaste, a chocolate bar now and then.

Truth was, he didn’t need anything or anyone anymore.

What he did need was the sun on his back, dust on his boots. The scents of horse sweat, saddle leather, wide skies and open paddocks. Not this. Not concrete, chains, and flickering lights that buzzed like blowflies over a carcass.

The guard in front led the way, with two behind. They never spoke to Finn. They kept their distance like they were handling a loaded weapon, as they walked him into the interview room—the one they kept for special guests.

Not that it was that special. Just a large, reinforced cage, without cameras, yet closed in enough for the guards to jump him, if needed.

Inside, there was a table, two chairs, and the visitor. Andrew Drew Bannon.

Now there was a ghost from the past.

‘That won’t be necessary, guard, you can uncuff him.’ Drew stood from the table. In a neat suit, tie done up proper, with his short hair greyer than Finn remembered.

‘But, Commissioner—’

‘Say what now?’ Finn arched an eyebrow at Drew, looking all official. A long way from the officer who used to wear scuffed boots and swear at broken printers in the old cop shop that was barely standing in the sticks.

The guard hesitated.

But Drew nodded again.

With a clink of chain, the cuffs came off.

Finn rubbed his wrists. Didn’t sit. Didn’t speak.

Drew then smiled like they were old mates catching up over a beer. ‘Still not much of a talker, eh?’

Finn shrugged.

‘You look well.’

Finn glanced at the ceiling light buzzing overhead. ‘Place agrees with me.’

That earned a laugh.

Drew dragged out a chair and sat down, motioning for Finn to do the same. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’

Finn didn’t move.

Drew smiled. ‘You always did prefer to stand.’

Finn still said nothing.

Drew rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands as if in prayer.

A closed folder lay in front of him. ‘So, you belted up your OIC. No one’s arguing that.

But, if it had been me, and someone had blocked my wife’s messages while my boy was dying…

’ Drew peered around, and his voice dropped, ‘I might’ve done worse. ’

You’d think after eighteen months it wouldn’t hurt. But it sure as hell made Finn bitter. This place was good at letting old wounds fester deep into your bones, twisting that bitterness into a heavy numbness that meant nothing surprised him anymore. Not since they’d buried his boy without him.

Drew slid a folder across the table. ‘There is a way out of this, Finn. As the Federal Agricultural Commissioner—’

Finn let out a low whistle. ‘Who’d you kill for that job?’

Drew chuckled, adjusting that fancy tie. ‘Some days, I feel like the job is killing me.’

‘It suits you.’ The guy always had that politician’s touch of speaking in circles and rarely giving a straight answer. ‘What do you want, Drew?’

‘I’m trying to set up a federal stock squad.’ Drew tapped on the file. ‘And I want you to run it.’

He tilted his head at Drew. ‘From in here?’

‘No, because I got you a pardon.’ Drew pushed the paperwork across the table. ‘This is your get-out-of-jail-free card.’

‘Nothing is for free.’ Finn knew that. ‘And I don’t work for suits.’

Drew smiled like he’d been expecting that. ‘You won’t be. But I remembered when you were a kid who’d brought down that string of stock thieves and helped me through the paperwork. You were what…’

‘Sixteen.’ It’s why he wanted to be a cop. And how Drew had ended up being his mentor, through the bad and the downright ugliness that life kept piling up on him.

‘I’m not a cop anymore.’ Finn didn’t believe in justice either—not anymore. Not after what they’d done to him. So why the hell was Drew offering him a badge now?

Drew leaned back, nodding like he’d expected that question, too. ‘But you’re a man who knows what’s right, in a world that keeps getting it wrong. That’s enough.’

Finn remained silent. He didn’t do speeches.

‘Listen, son, I’m giving you a shot to do something real, out there…’ He pointed to the high windows, so heavy with grime it effectively blocked out the world.

‘I need your help, Finn. These farmers, they’re already doing it tough. And when their livestock, their livelihood, goes missing no one cares. I can show you the figures of how rare it is for anyone to catch those thieves. And I want you to help them.’

Drew leaned forward, his forearms resting on the table.

‘You’ll answer directly to me. There will be no other brass breathing down your neck.

Just you and the land, doing what you were born to do.

You’re a born stockman who thinks like a cop, which is a rarity these days.

And we both know you never back down from a fight.

So, this is your shot, Finn, to build something that matters. ’

Finn stared at him, not saying a word.

This time, Drew didn’t fill the silence. He just waited.

And, finally, Finn asked, ‘Where?’