Chapter 35
Thirty-five
Finn didn’t give Taryn a choice. He just shoved her suitcase into the back of the troopy, like it was always meant to be there, like she was. Didn’t say she had to stay with him, he just wasn’t letting her argue about it.
She was here. That was enough. For now.
He’d gone to the pub, ready to knock heads because he didn’t do speeches. He didn’t do crowds or calming words. That was Marcus’s job, and Finn was happy to back them up. But the Elsie Creek Police weren’t even close to making it back into town before this pub exploded.
But the moment he’d stepped inside the bar, the fight drained right out of him.
Because there she was…
Taryn. Standing on the bar like it was her battleground. In jeans that clung like memory, with her hair clipped back in that no-nonsense way that had him itching to set it free.
And the whole bloody town, who’d been spoiling for violence, had quieted.
For her.
He couldn’t breathe for a second.
She’d been gone a month. No calls. Nothing. Just radio silence reduced to short sharp text messages, because they couldn’t let anyone know. It’d destroy the case they were building and wreck everything.
So, he’d told himself it didn’t matter. Told himself he was fine. Kept busy. And stayed focused.
But seeing her—
Damn, didn’t it hit him like a dust storm to the chest. The noise of the crowd faded, and all he heard was her voice—low, calm, anchoring.
And he’d just stood there. Every nerve ending reaching for her like the month apart hadn’t happened.
It wasn’t just that he’d missed her.
It was the way his body knew her. Along with that ache in his chest that said, there you are.
He hadn’t realised how hollow he’d felt until she filled his space.
So when she’d climbed down off the bar, and when her boots hit the floor and she’d turned—
He didn’t think. Didn’t speak.
He’d just reached for her and dragged her somewhere behind a closed door and kissed her. Because if he’d tried to say anything to her, beyond hello, he would’ve ruined it.
But that kiss…
When he should’ve been thinking about work and the town, he was thinking about her lips, and the way they’d crashed into his like they’d both been holding their breath for weeks.
How her mouth had tasted like sugar and defiance.
And how she’d looked at him afterward, like maybe she didn’t regret it.
That was the part he couldn’t shake, that moment that kept playing over in his head.
Soon after, she’d made him take her to the food van at the train station, muttering something about reinforcements, and came back armed with coffees and breakfast rolls like she was preparing for a siege.
‘Your cup of mud.’ Taryn handed him a takeaway cup inside the troopy. ‘Drink it.’
He didn’t argue as she talked the entire drive to the police station. Her familiar scent, her voice, her place on the passenger seat—all belonging.
What didn’t belong was Taryn talking about the weather. How miserable Canberra was with chilly rain and grey clouds. And how the clouds were rolling in early and maybe they’d get rain by the weekend.
She didn’t give a damn about rain or weather. That was the first clue.
Then she started on about the glittery cactus-shaped cat toys she’d bought for Tanisha—clue number two.
And then her retelling of her boss’s weird story about wrestling crocodiles the size of ten bathtubs, being told around the water cooler that it nearly choked some intern chewing on a jelly snake. Three strikes.
Taryn Hayes was stalling. Like it was any other morning where she hadn’t just dropped into town and stolen his breath.
He knew her well enough to spot the dodge. She didn’t do nice. Not like this.
Sass-talk, yes.
Small talk? No chance. They’d never bothered with small talk. Not from the moment they’d met.
So when they pulled into the car park behind the police station, he cut the engine and waited.
Taryn reached for the coffee tray.
But he put his hand on hers, to make her pause.
‘It’s not like you to beat around a patch of spinifex like this, Fed,’ he said, low. ‘What’s going on?’
Her inhale was staggered, as if hesitating.
‘Must be big.’
‘It is.’
Her whole demeanour shifted, as that quick, razor-sharp confidence of hers faded into something quieter.
And in the pit of his guts, Finn felt it like a warning. Especially when she looked at him like he only had a few weeks to live. ‘It’s Drew,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all Drew.’
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But everything inside him dropped like a steer caught off-guard, with its legs yanked out from under it.
‘The stock theft?’ His voice was hoarse, already knowing the answer.
She nodded. ‘It’s bigger than just here. It’s nationwide, Finn. Drew used your first Gaps File report and turned all your research into a how-to guide to steal livestock. Every weakness you flagged within the industry, he used it as a blueprint to build an illegal empire.’
Finn stared at the dashboard’s cracked trim and the old sticker peeling off near the vent. The troopy had taken hits before. So had he. But this one…
‘The man who gave me a second chance,’ he murmured. ‘The man who told me to build this squad…’
‘Used it to cover his tracks, he was—’
‘Say it.’ He braced himself, already guessing it.
She shook her head like she couldn’t.
So he said it instead. ‘He set me up to fail.’
Wasn’t that the ultimate kick in the guts. Enough to force the air out of his lungs, while struggling for the strength to breathe again—and only then he heaved in fire.
She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘I’m so sorry, Finn.’
‘That’s not what I need to hear. Give me something.’ He needed that lifeline.
She nodded at him like she understood. ‘I have more than enough to bury that bastard for life.’
He swallowed down the heat to listen beyond his raging pulse. ‘How?’
‘I’ve spent the past two days going through everything with my father, and we’ve connected the dots.
We found legal proof of how Drew buried it in shell companies, fake contractors, cryogenic shipments, including his use of livestock routes.
The Commissioner wasn’t helping the Stock Squad, Finn.
He was helping himself. The worst of it is… ’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s been in Elsie Creek and used that airstrip.’ She pointed to the airport that sat beyond the mesh fence. ‘Drew shook hands with the Stock Squad, giving your team their badges, while he had his assistant loading boxes filled with cryogenic canisters onto his jet. Arsehole.’
Finn’s hands curled around the steering wheel, knuckles tight and white. His jaw clenched, his eyes locked on the windscreen like it might give him a different point of view, to take back all those years of loyalty and blind faith he’d given to his mentor, Drew.
‘He used me,’ Finn said, his voice rough. ‘I defended him. Trusted him. And all this time… he was gutting this country’s prime stock from the inside out.’ He pressed the heel of his hand to his chest, like maybe if he pushed hard enough, he could stop the hollow tearing him apart.
Her hand curled around his arm, her thumb brushing the crook of his elbow. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He didn’t speak. He couldn’t even move as the silence in the cab filled with a pressure in the air that made it hard to breathe, as the words echoed in his head, like static through a busted radio.
He used me. Built his illegal empire on my second chance.
Making me the frontman for the system he was stealing from.
It clawed at him like barbed wire lashed across his back.
Come on. Why this? When Finn had spent his entire life crawling out of gutters.
A drunk for a father who’d taught him pain and fear.
A badge ripped from his chest the second he’d earned it.
A son he’d buried.
A wife he’d lost.
Leaving him with no family, only fists in prison where every inch he’d ever gained, he’d bled for.
And just when he thought he’d found a place to build something that mattered, when the Stock Squad felt like a second chance, this.
If the stockmen in this town were ready to lynch Red and Two-bob Bob for stolen cattle, what would they do to him, the bloke who’d unknowingly handed the keys to the kingdom to his boss!
He thought of Lydia. And of Brodie. Of Craig, Amara, Stone, Romy, Porter, and Izzy—all of them. How could he face any of them? The walking punchline of a twisted con.
Finn didn’t realise he was shaking until he felt her hand, steady and warm, resting on his forearm.
‘You need to tell them.’ His voice cracked, like every word had scraped past the bruised edges of what was left of him. ‘The team look at me like I’ve built something solid. I can’t be the one to take that from them. But you… You’re the outsider. The Fed. You’re the one who came to find the truth.’
And damn, didn’t she find that truth.
A bitter twist of a smile ghosted across his face. ‘That’s why they’ll listen. Because you were the enemy. And now, it’s time for you to deliver.’
The line hit hard at how that wheel had turned.
Taryn stared at him with wide eyes. Because they both knew he wasn’t wrong.
She’d been the enemy who had come to dismantle them. And now, she might be the only one who could hold them together.