Luke
After helping Mason with the horses, we go back to the kitchen. He’s making breakfast. I’m stealing bacon from the plate he’s mounding it on, thinking about Harper’s tits, when our cell phones all ping at once. Mason picks up to take a look, so I just keep chewing and imagining.
“Perimeter alert.” Mason swipes across his screen. “Sensor one, the main gate.”
Jake strides into the kitchen without any visible hurry. “Hendricks is here. I’ll go meet him.”
For the record, that’s exactly how Jake looks when he’s about to kill somebody too. Considering we’re asking Hendricks for assistance, I figure maybe I should intercede here. I’m the charming one, after all. I push off the counter. “I’ll go.”
Jake studies me and then nods. “Try not to start a war before breakfast.”
“No promises.” Smirking, I head for the front door.
The truck rolling up the drive looks like it survived at least three wars and possibly started a fourth. Dust coats the sides. The engine rumbles like it’s personally offended by modern emissions standards.
It pulls to a stop behind my truck and Hendricks climbs out.
He looks like every aging ranch hand in Montana at first glance. Early forties. Dark flannel rolled to his elbows. Faded jeans. Scuffed boots.
Then he turns his head and the illusion dies fast. Men who’ve spent years hunting other men carry themselves differently, like the world is a room they’ve already cleared.
Hendricks is no different. He moves like a predator—controlled, precise, no wasted motion. His cold gray eyes catalog every threat in sight before he even shuts the door.
The first time I met him, he dragged me out of a bad situation in northern Syria.
The second time, he shot me.
Well, technically, it was friendly fire. I think.
“Jesus.” I check him out. There’s something different about him beyond his dark hair that’s grown longer than military regulation. “They let you across state lines looking like that?”
“They let you talk?” he retorts instantly, scoping out the ranch.
“Against their better judgment.” I should have thought to put Mason and his rifle on the roof to fuck with him.
“Where’s Callahan?” He turns and takes in the stables, the corral, and Mason’s horses grazing in the pastures. “I can’t believe he’s letting you make decisions.”
“Only the bad ones.”
“Explains a lot.” He finally faces me and holds out his fist.
I chuckle as I bump his.
We’ve crossed paths over the years—operations neither of us were supposed to talk about, places neither of us officially existed. He works government contracts when it suits him, private work when it doesn’t, and mostly prefers operating alone.
He’s not a mercenary. Not a contractor. He’s something else entirely. He operates in spaces where governments can’t or won’t go. He calls himself a private intelligence and recovery specialist.
Hendricks doesn’t join teams unless he has to, so I’m glad he agreed to come help out.
I also wonder what this is going to cost us.
He asked us to aid him on a tactical contract he had a couple weeks ago, and we did because it paid ridiculously well, but owing someone is something completely different—especially when you owe someone like Hendricks.
I gesture to the front door. “Long drive?”
Falling into step beside me, he grunts. “Long life.”
We enter the house. I watch his gaze go up the stairs—he probably senses Emma and Jenna up there. I ignore it and head for the kitchen, knowing he’ll follow.
Jake and Mason are prepared when I walk in. We’ve been together for a long fucking time, so I know when they have their game faces on. I wink at them and go over to pull out another coffee mug.
“Gentlemen,” Hendricks says as he silently enters the room.
They do all the pleasantries as I get Hendricks coffee and set it on the table where I want him to sit. He gives a look because of course he knows what I’m doing, but he sits down anyway, settling in like he owns the place.
Ignoring the drink, his gaze sweeps over each of us—assessing, calculating. “I appreciate you bringing me in on this.”
I snort. That’s governmentese for you’re going to owe me big.
Jake sits across from him. “We appreciate you coming.”
Hendricks dives in, no nonsense and straightforward like he’s always been. “I’ve arranged for one of my contacts to take care of your witness. Jenna Morales will be secure, off the grid, no trail. She’ll be moved within the hour.”
“Where?” I lean against the counter, crossing my arms in front of me.
He meets my gaze calmly. “You don’t need to know that. The less you know, the safer she is. Trust me, she’ll be protected as long as she follows the guidelines she’s given.”
“The van was rigged to blow,” I say.
“Counterintuitive,” Hendricks says mildly. “If she was product.”
“If she was product.” Jake looks at him steadily. “Jenna said someone said she was ‘the wrong one.’”
“So Turner was looking for a woman in particular.” Hendricks rubs his chin contemplatively.
I nod. “In Texas.”
“I’ll check it out.” He leans back in his chair, his expression shifting. “Which leads us to the real situation here.”
“Cole Turner,” Jake all but spits out.
“I’m surprised this hothead”—Hendricks jabs his thumb in my direction—“hasn’t flown off the handle and eliminated him yet.”
“I had that planned for this afternoon,” I drawl.
Hendricks sits forward, focused on Jake, cold and clinical.
“You can’t just kill Cole Turner and walk away clean.
Turner has connections. Mafia. Cartel. Multi-state trafficking networks that won’t disappear if he does.
You kill Turner, someone else steps in. The infrastructure stays intact.
The buyers keep buying, and the victims keep disappearing. ”
Jake doesn’t bat a lash. “We need to take down the whole operation.”
“You need to take down the entire operation.” Hendricks taps the table with one finger. “The network, the buyers, the money, the political protection, everything.”
I sigh. “Well, shit. That’s more complicated than a bullet to the head.”
“Not that complicated,” Jake says, calm and dangerous.
“Not that complicated,” Hendricks agrees with a nod. “We just need to make sure we do it right.”
Jake raises a brow. “We?”
Hendricks matches the brow. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
“And now we have a party,” I say with a grin.
Hendricks nods in my direction but speaks to Jake. “How have you put up with this asshole for this long?”
“I drink a lot,” Jake says, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
Mason shifts in his seat. “Just to clarify, we’re planning to take out a branch of a mafia family.”
“No, we’re taking out the whole fucking tree.” Hendricks smiles.
If I were anyone else, that smile would make my balls shrivel.
Hendricks continues. “My sources indicate that Turner’s built layers of protection.
Legal, financial, and political. He’s positioning himself as a gubernatorial candidate, which gives him institutional backing.
He has law enforcement in his pocket. He has shell companies hiding his assets, and he has enforcers who’ll keep the operation running even when he’s busy committing other crimes.
We dismantle it all piece by piece. I’ll look into Turner’s setup, coordinate the intelligence, and identify the weak points.
When the time comes, we move, fast, precise, and total. ”
“How long?” Jake asks.
“Weeks. Maybe a month.” Hendricks doesn’t sugarcoat it. “This isn’t a quick fix.”
Jake nods. “What do you want in return?”
Hendricks smiles—cold and professional. “A marker.”
“A marker,” Jake repeats.
“A future favor. Unspecified.” Hendricks says it like he’s discussing the weather. “I help you take down Turner’s operation, and when I need something from you—any of you—you deliver. No questions asked.”
The room goes silent.
Mason exchanges a look with Jake. They’re in for their women. Turner wants the ranch Emma inherited from her dad for its access routes through the ridge, and Lily had been kidnapped and in his network when she was eighteen. A marker is a small price to pay for peace of mind where they’re concerned.
Jake looks at me.
I’m in it for them, of course. They’re my brothers in every way but blood.
They’re the only family I’ve ever known, and their women are my family now too.
I’d scoffed when Jake said we should buy this ranch, but it’s the first home I’ve ever known.
No one is going to fuck this up—especially a megalomaniacal asshole who’s spent his whole life confusing fear with respect.
I grew up with guys like that in foster homes.
But I have one more consideration now: Harper. Sooner or later, Turner is going to become her problem. If I can keep her from tangling with him, I’ll do it.
So I shrug. “We were going to owe him anyway.”
Jake turns back to Hendricks. “Alright. You’ve got your marker.”
“Good.” Hendricks extends his hand across the table to Jake and they shake on it. Then Hendricks stands. “A woman named Laura will be here in twenty minutes to pick up the victim. You can trust her. I’ll be in touch within forty-eight hours. In the meantime, keep your heads down.”
“Copy that,” Jake says.
Hendricks turns to me. “You copy that too, Riot? No more exploding vans in the night?”
I smile slowly. “You know how I like to make things go boom.”
Shaking his head, he turns and walks out the way he came. We hear the door close behind him and a few minutes later his car taking off.
Mason exhales. “Well. That just got a lot more complicated.”
“Yeah.” Jake runs a hand through his hair. “But we need to finish this, so if we need to handle complicated, we will.”
“It’s not the first time,” I point out. The only thing different are the stakes. Jake has Emma and their baby to consider, and Mason’s in the same boat with Lily—I’m sure they’ll have a kid or five eventually.
And I’m right there with them. Jake and Mason became my family by necessity in the unit, but when we bought Blackthorn Ranch together, it became a choice.
I’ve never had a family—I grew up in the system.
So this—I look around the kitchen, kind of messy, smelling like what I always imagined home to smell like—is important to me. They’re all mine, and I’ll fight for it, and for them—until the death if I have to.