Chapter Thirty-Two #3
I rest one finger lightly on the ‘Enter’ key and meet his eyes. “One keystroke.” The words aren’t a threat but a timeline.
“You push this meeting one inch off course…” I shrug a shoulder. “It leaves before you’ve made it back to your car.”
For the first time since he walked into the warehouse, his attention drops from my face to my hand, just for a second.
Slate shifts in his chair beside Static, the old timber creaking beneath him as he drags a hand slowly through his beard.
“You keep lookin’ at Nevada,” he says, his Montana drawl rolling lazily across the room.
“Reckon that’s because you’ve spent too many years thinkin’ the world stops at the state line.
” Calloway turns toward him, but Slate doesn’t hurry.
“You remember the McCrae place?” A faint line appears between Calloway’s brows.
“Reckon not.” Slate nods to himself, exactly as though he’d expected that answer.
“Figured as much.” He folds his forearms across his chest. “You signed one piece of paper, and my family lost fourteen hundred acres of cattle land we’d been ridin’ since my granddaddy was a kid.
” The warehouse falls quiet again. “I figured back then you were just another politician…” his gaze never leaves Calloway’s, “… now I figure you’re just another son of a bitch. ”
Nitro lets out the smallest huff beside me, almost a laugh, and Bear scratches at his beard, but nobody interrupts.
The words settle over the room all on their own.
“So, this is revenge?”
Slate’s mouth twitches. “Nah. You takin’ my family’s land…” he shrugs one shoulder, “… that made me dislike you.” His expression hardens. “You sendin’ people after women…” he leans out, pressing his fingertip to a picture of Piper being followed, “… that made you my problem.”
I watch the calculation start behind Calloway’s eyes.
Nevada.
Montana.
Federal.
State.
Every direction he turns, another door closes.
He tries anyway. “There has to be another way to handle this.”
Sin doesn’t even blink. “There was.” Calloway frowns. “You should’ve picked it before you started threatening our women.” The words land harder than anything we’ve shown him so far.
I reach into the folder beside the tablet and slide a couple of photographs across the table, which glide over the timber before coming to rest directly in front of him.
He looks down.
Piper, coffee in one hand, walking back to the clubhouse.
Sage, in her kitchen cooking, the picture taken through the window across the apartment.
Calloway stares at them for a long moment without touching them, and Sin lets him.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quieter than it’s been all night.
“Piper’s twenty-six. She’s deaf.” The photograph never leaves Calloway’s sight.
“She wasn’t carrying a weapon…” Sin pauses, letting out a frustrated huff.
“She wasn’t breaking the law.” Sin leans forward just enough to rest his forearms on the table.
“She was walking home, minding her own business.” He folds his arms across his chest. “And Sage… she was in her own home, and you had a man photograph her in her personal moments, invading her privacy. Invading her home literally while she was there, not to mention the guys you had try to run us off the road, and shot at her to try and quiet her.”
Silence settles over the warehouse.
“You’ve spent twenty years telling people you’re protecting communities.” Sin’s voice stays calm, almost conversational. “Tell me how two innocent women became a threat worth following through the streets.”
Calloway opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
I reach into my pocket and lay Ryan Gilbert’s driver’s license beside the photographs.
Calloway’s eyes flick to it, then back to me, then widen in shock.
“I found your photographer upstairs.” I tap the license once. “I know his name.” Another tap. “I know where he lives.”
The color drains from Calloway’s face so gradually I almost miss it, but the fight doesn’t leave him all at once. It bleeds away.
His shoulders settle first.
Then his jaw unclenches.
Calloway’s eyes lift to Sin. “All right…” The words come out rougher this time, stripped of the confidence he’d walked into the warehouse wearing. “What are your terms?”
Sin studies him for a long moment, his forearms resting on the table. “My terms?” He gives a slow nod. “You resign.”
Calloway blinks. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” A humorless laugh escapes him.
“That’s not your decision to make.”
“No,” Sin agrees easily. “It’s yours.” He nods toward my laptop. “Or theirs.”
Calloway follows the gesture, his attention settling on the distribution list waiting beneath my finger before drifting back to Sin.
“They’ll take your seat eventually. They’ll strip your committees, your reputation, and every piece of political capital you’ve spent twenty years building.
” Sin’s voice never changes. “I’m giving you the chance to leave before they do it for you.
” Silence stretches across the table. “You resign your Senate seat, you withdraw from every committee, you cooperate fully with every investigation that follows.”
I slide another folder across the table.
Calloway opens it reluctantly, his eyes moving over the first page before stopping altogether. “What is this?”
“Restitution.”
His gaze lifts to mine. “For who?”
“For the people you buried.” I tap the figures printed across the page. “Every dollar that disappeared through your shell companies gets redirected into Unsilenced.”
His brow furrows like he is confused. “The nonprofit I’ve been trying to shut down?”
“The same one.” I hold his gaze.
“You spent three years trying to choke it to death. Cut its funding, tie it up in investigations, make families believe the help they were promised wasn’t coming.”
Images flash through my head before I can stop them.
Sage sitting at her kitchen table surrounded by paperwork she’d spent months fighting to protect.
The panic in her voice when she called me from the parking lot.
The look on her face when she genuinely believed she’d failed every family depending on her.
She carried that weight because of him.
Now he gets to carry the bill.
“You’ll rebuild every program your office gutted,” I continue, my voice staying level. “Every outreach service. Every emergency placement. Every counseling program. Every dollar your committee siphoned away comes back.” I tap the funding schedule once. “Unsilenced administers every cent.”
Calloway studies the paperwork for another long moment. “That’s hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“It is.” I don’t look away. “And it still won’t buy back what those families lost.”
He closes the folder slowly before turning toward Slate. “I guess Montana wants something in all this too?”
Slate has been sitting back in his chair the whole time, one arm hooked over the backrest, saying very little.
Now he leans forward, dragging a hand through his beard before resting both forearms on the table. “So now you remember us?”
Calloway’s brow furrows.
Slate nods once. “Figured as much.”
“So, this is revenge?” Calloway asks quietly.
Slate looks at him for a long moment before reaching into the folder and sliding a document across the table. “Nah.” His drawl stays slow and even. “I just want my fuckin’ land back.”
Calloway looks down at the page.
“You publicly acknowledge the committee’s decision was compromised.” Slate slides another across. “You sponsor the legislation restorin’ the McCrae grazin’ rights.” A third joins them. “And you don’t stop pushin’ until my family has back every. Damn. Thing. You took from us.”
Slate settles back in his chair. “That’s what this costs.”
Calloway looks down at the paperwork. “You think fourteen hundred acres fixes this?”
Slate’s mouth twitches. “Nah.” His voice stays quiet. “But it’s where you fuckin’ start.”