Chapter 20
Rhett
I pace while she’s gone. Circle the damn kitchen like it might cough up answers if I glare hard enough. By the time my truck rumbles back up the drive, my nerves are shredded.
I step onto the porch just in time to see her slam the door shut. Hard.
Her hands are shaking.
“Sweetheart?”
She doesn’t look at me. She walks right past, up the steps, her eyes glassy and too wide. Her knuckles are white around the handle of a brown paper bag, but it’s crushed and useless, whatever she bought long forgotten. She drops it by the door like it burned her.
“Talk to me,” I say, following her inside.
She finally spins. Her cheeks are flushed with cold and rage.
“I saw him,” she says, voice hollow.
I don’t need to ask who. My stomach knots.
“He was in the general store.” Her voice splinters. “Showed me some of his video proof. Said if I try to take him down, he’ll take me with him.”
The world narrows. Just her. Just that name.
“What did you say to him?” I ask, already fighting the urge to grab my rifle and go hunting.
“I told him to go to hell,” she snaps. “Then I walked out before I did something I couldn’t come back from.”
I reach for her, but she steps back, spine straight as steel.
“I thought about running. But I’m not going to do that. Seeing him was a sign, Rhett. A sign that this is what I’m meant to do.”
“I don’t think—”
“No. You didn’t.”
That lands like a slap.
She storms toward the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
I stand there for a long time.
And when the sound of tires on gravel pulls my attention back outside, I already know I’m not in the right state of mind to be making plans.
Beau and Sawyer climb out of the truck, heads down, eyes wary.
“Tell me you brought something good,” I mutter.
Sawyer lifts a thumb drive. “Enough to light the whole damn place on fire.”
Good.
Because I’m ready to burn something down.
I light a cigarette, inhaling deeply.
“You sure we wanna do this today?” Beau asks.
“Today’s the only day we’ve got,” I mutter, exhaling smoke through clenched teeth. “Chester’s already squirming. I want to squeeze him before he slithers out.”
Sawyer steps up beside me, eyes scanning the tree line like someone’s already watching. “You get the files Maria sent?”
“Plenty in there to bury him. And if it’s not enough—” I pause, glance back toward the house. “If it’s not enough then I take care of it the old way. Gun and a shovel.”
Beau stiffens. “You serious?”
“As a fucking heart attack.”
Sawyer swears under his breath. “Rhett—”
“You’ve seen what he’s done. What he’s still doing. And if that video ever gets out—”
“She’ll survive,” Beau cuts in. “But she won’t forgive you for keeping her in the dark.”
That’s when I hear her voice behind me.
“I’m right here.”
Juniper stands barefoot in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest like armor, but her eyes are glassy. She’s heard everything.
“Juniper—”
“No.” Her voice cuts clean through the morning. “You don’t get to plan my life without me. Rhett, I just told you…”
I move toward her, instinct kicking in, but she steps back.
“I’m not running,” she says. “And I’m not letting you take the fall for me. You think martyrdom makes you noble, Rhett? All it does is leave me behind. Again.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She laughs dryly. “You think I can’t stomach it? That I’m too soft? Too broken?”
“I think if you see that tape, it’ll shatter you.”
“I’ve already been shattered,” she whispers. “And I’m still standing.”
Beau and Sawyer go quiet behind me.
“You’re not the one who’s haunted, Rhett. You’re not the one with scars.” She swallows hard. “You think protecting me means hiding the truth. But what I need is someone who stands beside me. Not in front of me.”
And just like that she’s walking away. Not storming Not slamming doors Just leaving the house. And it fucking terrifies me.
I stand frozen. I want to go after her. Every part of me wants to chase her down and make her see the bigger picture, the danger, the plan. But I don’t. Not yet. Because she’s right.
Goddamn it, she’s right.
I’m so used to being the one in control—of the fight, the fallout, the narrative—that I don’t know how to let someone stand beside me in the wreckage. Especially not the girl I once thought was made of light, only to learn she’d walked through more darkness than I ever had.
The silence stretches thick and sharp.
Then Sawyer’s voice cuts through it like a blade.
“You gonna let her go like that?”
I swallow hard. My throat’s dry. My heart’s a fist.
“No. I just needed a second…” My jaw flexes. “To stop being the kind of man she thinks I am.”
The kind who makes choices for her.
The kind who hides things in the name of protection.
The kind who thinks love is about shielding, not showing up.
Beau claps a hand on my shoulder. No words. Just that steady, grounding weight of a friend who’s seen too much and still chooses to stay.
I move past them, going outside. The wind picks up, soft but insistent, curling around my ribs like it’s trying to hold me accountable. The sun breaks through the gray—just a little. Just enough to see her. She’s angry. I can see that by the steps she takes.
“Juniper,” I call after her.
She picks up her pace, her chest heaving as she walks. I follow her all the way to the ledge. The one I took her to that night I finally claimed her. She doesn’t stop until she’s perched on the edge, her legs dangling like the drop below doesn’t scare her.
It scares the hell out of me.
Because all I can see is the distance she’s willing to put between us.
“Sweetheart.”
She doesn’t turn.
So I don’t speak again. I just walk until I’m beside her.
I sit down, close enough to feel the heat of her. Not close enough to touch. Not until she lets me.
The valley stretches below us, wide and endless. But all I see is her profile—eyes sharp, mouth trembling like she’s fighting back a scream or a sob or both.
“I’ve been trying to do this the right way,” I say finally, voice low. “Build the case. Protect the people I care about. Stay on the right side of the law.”
She turns her head just slightly. Just enough that I catch the edge of her gaze.
“And?”
“And it’s tearing me in half. It’s going to be messy, and you might get hurt.
” I shift, facing her fully. My hands are fists against my thighs.
“You think I don’t want to tell the whole damn town what he did to you?
You think I don’t want to burn his world down, salt the earth, and dance in the ashes? ”
“Then why haven’t you?”
Her voice is small. And that’s the part that undoes me.
“Because I’ve got something to lose now,” I say. “You.”
Her breath catches. Just for a second. But I hear it. Feel it. I look at her, all of her. And I let the truth bleed out.
“I don’t know how to love without ruining,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to keep you safe without making you hate me. But you’re it, Juniper. You’re it for me.”
Silence.
The wind shifts again. Somewhere below, a hawk cries.
And then her hand slides into mine. She doesn’t say she forgives me.
Doesn’t say she understands. Doesn’t ask for more.
She just laces our fingers together like that’s where they’ve always belonged.
Like maybe we’ve been heading here all along. And I know.
That’s all she needed.
Not permission. Just the truth.
She finally looks up at me.
“I want him to pay, Rhett. Not in court.” Her gaze holds mine. “Blood for blood.”
But it’s not just rage in her eyes when she says it—it’s something colder. Calmer. Like the part of her that used to cry has gone quiet. Like she’s not just mad anymore.
She’s ready.
“You want blood, sweetheart? Blood I can do.”
I take her hand and help her to her feet. She stands tall. And when I look at her now, I don’t see a woman who needs protecting. I see a woman about to burn down the man who tried to destroy her.
We walk back toward the house in silence, save for the crunch of gravel and the wind through the trees. The porch light’s on now—Beau must’ve flipped the switch. It casts a warm circle on the boards, like some kind of invitation.
Beau and Sawyer are waiting inside when we step through the door.
Beau’s in the armchair, boots up on the coffee table, thumb drive spinning between his fingers. Sawyer’s got his shoulder against the wall, arms crossed, watching Juniper like he’s seeing her for the first time.
“We doing this or what?” she says before anyone can speak.
Beau quirks a brow. “Well, hell. I thought we’d be pulling you out of a ditch after that exit.”
Juniper steps forward, eyes sharp. “You got the files?”
Sawyer pushes off the wall. “We’ve got more than that. We tracked Chester’s cloud activity. Most of it’s hidden under fake names and burner accounts, but we traced one back to an external IP used at the church. Multiple uploads. Some labeled with dates that match...”
He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. Juniper flinches, just barely. Then steadies.
Beau tosses the drive onto the table. “Copies of everything. Including messages between him and a couple creeps in a group thread. We’re still digging through the mess, but from what we’ve seen, it’s enough to sink him ten times over.”
“And the video?” I ask, because I need to hear it.
Beau nods grimly. “Encrypted. But he made a mistake. He backed up a file with a thumbnail preview. It’s her. We didn’t open it. We didn’t have to because of the original file date.”
Juniper doesn’t look at me. Hell, she doesn’t look at anyone. She sits on the edge of the couch, elbows on her knees, eyes on the floor.
“I want to release it,” she says. “Not the video. God, not the video. But the rest of it. The messages. The links. The names. All of it. I want to tear the whole system apart.”
“There’ll be blowback,” Sawyer warns. “His congregation’s loyal. Half the town still thinks he’s the second coming of Christ.”
“Then they can watch their savior burn,” she says.
I take the seat beside her. “We’ll need a plan. Controlled release. If we drop it too fast, someone might delete the rest before it spreads. If we wait too long, he’ll smell blood and disappear.”
Beau nods. “We leak it to The Spur. Local news blog. Woman named Tammy runs it. She’s been itching for something big. She’s no fan of Chester.”
“Is she trustworthy?” I ask.
Sawyer shrugs. “More than most. And if she gets spooked, we have a failsafe. We post it all directly. But the more sources it touches, the harder it is for him to plug every leak.”
“What about legal blowback?” Juniper asks. “Can he come after us for exposing him?”
Beau smirks. “He can try. But it won’t go far once the rest of his skeletons tumble out.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “We hit him where it hurts. His reputation. His power. His connections. He trafficked in secrets—we make them public.”
Juniper looks at me, and for the first time in a long while, she’s not afraid.
“Give Tammy the files,” she says.
“You sure?” I ask.
Her voice doesn’t waver. “He took my voice once. I’m taking it back.”
Silence falls for a beat.
Then Sawyer nods once. “We’ll be watching him. He makes one wrong move—”
“He already has,” I growl.
Juniper rises. “I want to do it tonight.”
Beau whistles low. “Damn, darlin’. You’ve got steel in you.”
“She always has,” I say, standing with her.
Sawyer’s already moving toward his laptop, Beau pulling his truck keys from his pocket.
“Let’s get to work,” Juniper says.
And just like that we stop running. And start fighting.
Together.