Chapter 16 RYDER
RYDER
The thunderstorm comes down hard enough to flatten the mountain.
Sheets of rain hammer the glass walls of the house, turning the world outside into a moving blur of gray and green.
Thunder rolls low and deep through the valley, the kind that rattles bone more than eardrums. I like storms like this; they remind me that nature doesn’t ask permission—it just does what it’s going to do.
The dogs circle my boots as I pull on a jacket, already wound tight with purpose. They know the routine. Storms mean checking and securing the perimeter, and they are ready.
“All right,” I mutter. “Let’s make sure nobody does anything stupid.”
That includes them.
Outside, the rain soaks through fast, mud grabs at my boots as I move toward the corrals, head down, shoulders braced. The horses shift when they see me coming—silhouettes against the storm, muscles rolling under wet hides.
Wild horses don’t like storms. They tolerate them. Big difference.
“Easy,” I call out, voice steady, pitched low enough to cut through the rain without spooking them. “You’ve been through worse than this.”
One of them snorts, tossing his head like he’s personally offended by my optimism.
Just like the dogs, I trained them myself. They came out of bad land and worse hands—feral and half-broken, the kind that either learn to trust or never do. It took time, more patience than most people would bother with, and came at the cost of lots of bruises.
I move down the line, checking latches, running my hands over cold steel, making sure nothing’s come loose in the wind. The horses watch me, ears flicking, eyes sharp. They know me, but that doesn’t mean they like me.
“That gate better hold,” I tell one of them as thunder cracks overhead. “Because I’m not chasing you through the trees in this.”
He stomps a hoof, splashing mud up my pant leg.
“Don’t threaten me,” I add dryly. “I grew up breaking horses before breakfast. You don’t scare me.”
That gets me another snort. I take it as mutual respect.
You can take the cowboy out of the ranch, but you can’t take the ranch out of the cowboy.
Iron Stallion branded that into my bones long before I learned to shoot straight or disappear clean.
The habits stick: the way I move, how I work, and the way I talk to animals like they understand me better than people ever have.
I secure the last stall, give each horse a final look, and move on. The dogs fan out as we head back toward the house, their coats slick and dark, eyes bright with focus.
I take a moment under the overhang, wiping rain from my face, scanning the tree line. The valley is loud with weather, visibility shot to hell, but my perimeter sensors don’t care about rain or darkness.
Nothing pings. Good.
I feed the dogs inside, tossing them chunks of meat from the hunt earlier in the day. They eat with disciplined enthusiasm, tails thumping against concrete. I pour coffee I don’t really need and lean against the counter, listening to the storm crawl over the mountain.
Thunder booms again, closer this time, rattling the glass. Rook’s ears perk up in alarm.
“Relax, it’s just the heavens having a blast,” I reassure him.
He barely has time to relax when the alarm sounds. It’s a clean, unmistakable tone that cuts through the downpour and goes straight down my spine.
Perimeter breach!
I’m already moving before the sound finishes registering. My coffee is forgotten, my muscles snapping from calm into readiness like a switch has been thrown. I turn toward the control panel, heart steady, mind clear, already running through possibilities.
The dogs lift their heads in unison, their bodies going still as their muscles coil. They growl lowly, waiting for my instruction.
“Stay,” I tell them, even though they already know.
The screen resolves into a grid of feeds, with thermal overlays layered over night vision, perimeter lines glowing faintly against the storm. Wind and rain distort shapes, smear edges, but heat doesn’t lie.
My jaw clenches when I notice the breach on the eastern edge of the property—past the first fence and the natural choke point I put there on purpose. Whoever crossed it didn’t stumble in by accident.
My first thought is immediate and unwelcome. Barre’s son. I’ve been waiting for this. I might be a ghost, but I’m smart enough to understand that debts like that don’t evaporate; they collect interest.
I lean closer to the screen, eyes narrowing as I isolate the signature. It’s only one heat source. I blink once, then again, recalibrating the feed manually. Rain can play tricks, but the system is solid. Military-grade. Overkill, some would say.
Still one.
That doesn’t make sense. No team comes after me with a single body, not unless they want that body dead before it ever reaches the house. Even assassins need redundancy—overwatch and extraction.
A lone operator is either bait or desperate, and neither option relaxes me.
I zoom in further, fingers moving fast and sure over the controls. The shape is human-sized, smaller than I’d expect if this were a trained hitter. The movement is wrong, too—uneven and inconsistent. Not the clean, economical advance of someone who knows they’re walking into a kill zone.
I don’t let that lower my guard. I know enough to be aware that people fake weakness all the time.
I shut the panel down and head for the weapons locker, the dogs rising silently to flank me now without being told.
I pull the rifle free, check the chamber by feel, muscle memory so ingrained I could do it blind.
The suppressor is already attached. A knife slides into place at my side, another at the small of my back.
I step back into my boots, shrug back into my jacket, and shoulder the rifle. The dogs’ eyes track me, waiting for the signal.
“Come,” I command.
The door opens onto chaos—rain slashing sideways, wind howling through the trees, thunder rolling overhead like artillery.
Visibility is garbage, but that works both ways.
I melt into the dark, moving along the path that doesn’t look like a path, feet finding familiar ground without thought.
The dogs spread out, silent shadows to either side, trained to hold position unless I give the word.
I move downhill, keeping the tree line between me and the breach point, using elevation and cover the way it’s meant to be used.
The thermal image replays in my mind, mapping distance and direction.
I stop behind a stand of pines and drop to one knee, rain plastering my hair back, water running down the back of my neck.
I scan through the scope, sweeping the area where the perimeter dips toward the creek.
The shape resolves. It’s smaller than I thought, hunched and carrying something. I don’t lower the rifle or let myself relax because I’ve learned the hard way that the moment you think this isn’t a threat is the moment you die.
I signal the dogs to hold and move forward alone, silent as the storm allows, every sense sharpened to a knife’s edge.
Whatever crossed my line tonight did it with intent, and I’m about to find out why.
The rain does most of the work for me. It eats sound, blurs edges, and turns everything into motion and shadow.
I move with it, not against it, letting the storm cover the soft give of mud under my boots, the brush of wet leaves against my legs.
The dogs stay back where I left them, disciplined enough not to crowd me, close enough that I know exactly where they are without looking.
The heat signature is closer now, and I don’t need the scope to see it anymore.
The figure is at the edge of the tree line near the creek, half-sheltered by a cluster of rocks I put there years ago to redirect runoff. Smart place to stop, but a bad place to hide. The rain sheets off the stones, turning the ground slick and treacherous.
The person sways—not side to side like someone trying to stay loose or ready, but forward, like gravity is winning inch by inch.
I slow, every step deliberate, rifle steady against my shoulder. My finger rests straight along the guard, not on the trigger. Not yet. The wind shifts, carrying sound in fragments—ragged breathing, maybe. Or just the storm lying to me.
I angle left, putting a tree between us, then another, as the distance closes. Thirty yards. Twenty-five. Twenty.
“Don’t move!” My voice booms, cutting through the rain without rising.
The figure freezes, and for a heartbeat, I think that this is where it turns ugly. Where the shape straightens, a weapon comes up, and I have to make a decision that will echo for the rest of the night.
Instead, the figure staggers. Actually stumbles, catching itself on the rock with one hand. The other arm stays tight against the chest, curled protectively around something wrapped in fabric.
“Who are you?” I demand, advancing another step, rifle unwavering. “You’re on private land.”
No answer.
The wind gusts hard, rain driving sideways now, and the hood slips back from the person’s head. Hair spills free—dark and plastered to a face I don’t recognize at first, not because it’s unfamiliar, but because my mind refuses the shape it’s trying to give it.
Then lightning splits the sky, turning night into day for a fraction of a second, and that’s when I see her.
Kate.
The name hits me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs even as my body stays locked in position, training overriding shock. Her face is pale, drawn tight with exhaustion, eyes unfocused. She looks smaller than I remember, fragile in a way she never was before.
She takes one step toward me, relief cracking through her expression, as her knees buckle.
“Kate?” I call, the word torn out of me before I can stop it.
The rifle drops as I close the distance in two strides, catching her as she collapses, her weight slamming into my chest hard enough to make me grunt. She’s cold, soaked through, shivering violently, her body finally giving up now that she’s here.
The bundle in her arms shifts, a small sound escapes it, and my entire world narrows to that single, impossible detail. A baby?
Kate’s fingers curl into my jacket with the last of her strength, her forehead pressing briefly into my chest.
“I found you,” she whispers, voice barely audible over the storm.
Then she goes limp in my arms, rain and thunder and everything else falling away as I stand there in the mud, holding her and the tiny, warm weight between us, while the mountain rages on around us.
I move on instinct since shock is a luxury I don’t allow myself, especially right now.
Kate’s weight is light in my arms—too light, her body trembling even unconscious.
The baby squirms once, a soft whimper cutting through the storm, and that sound snaps something brutal and ancient into place inside my chest.
I need to get them out of this storm and warmed up. Now!
I shrug out of my jacket with one hand and wrap it around them both, pulling the soaked fabric tighter around her shoulders and the baby. She’s freezing and scared. I can feel it through the layers—her skin cold, muscles locked tight from exhaustion and fear.
“Easy,” I murmur, though she can’t hear me. The word is for me as much as her.
The dogs appear at my sides without a sound. They circle once, alert, scanning the tree line, then fall into step as I turn back toward the house. The alarms are still armed, but that’s a problem for later. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting them inside.
Rain soaks my shirt through, cold seeping into muscle and bone, but I barely register it.
My focus is on them—the way her head lolls against my shoulder and the baby’s uneven breaths, tiny fists clenched in the fabric of her sweater.
The fact that she found me, through miles of nothing and weather that would’ve turned most people around hours ago, leaves me with a lot of unanswered questions, but there will be time for answers later.
I push through the door and into the house, kicking it shut behind me once the dogs are in too.
I don’t stop moving until I reach the living area.
I lower her carefully onto the couch, keeping her on her side, one arm still wrapped protectively around the baby.
I kneel, stripping off her soaked shoes, peeling away layers with hands that are steady by force alone.
She’s pale, lips faintly blue.
“Fuck,” I grunt under my breath.
I scoop the baby up gently, cradling him against my chest while I grab a blanket with my free hand. He lets out a soft, indignant sound like he’s deeply offended by the whole situation.
“I know, I know. It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, voice rough.
I wrap him snugly, then set him down in the center of the couch before turning back to Kate. Her breathing is shallow but steady, letting me know that she’s alive. Thank God.
I strip off her wet jacket, then her sweater and pants, replacing them with dry layers from the hall closet. She stirs once, brow furrowing, lips parting like she’s trying to say something, but she doesn’t wake.
When she’s settled, I kneel back, hands braced on my thighs, and finally let myself look.
Really look. This is Kate. The woman who walked into my life and wrecked my precision with a smile and too many words.
The woman I left in the US embassy in Mogadishu without looking back.
The woman who should be anywhere but here.
And that baby—
I glance at him again, at the dark hair plastered to his small head, at the shape of his nose and the familiar line of his jaw. Recognition lands like a punch I never saw coming. No. Not yet. I don’t let myself go there. Not without all the facts.
The fire crackles as I stoke it higher, heat filling the room. Outside, thunder rolls, shaking the windows, but inside my fortress, everything narrows to this moment.
Kate stirs again, a faint sound leaving her throat.
“I’m here,” I say quietly, even though she still doesn’t hear me. “You’re safe.”
I don’t know if that’s a promise or a lie yet.
But standing there, soaked to the skin, watching over the woman who somehow found me and the child who might change everything, one truth settles heavy and unavoidable in my gut: the war I was avoiding has just made it to my door.