Prologue #3
A knock landed against the open office door, pulling me from my thoughts before Judge entered carrying a tablet beneath one arm.
Hawkeye followed him with the deceptively casual stride he had possessed even when he carried a sniper rifle and moved through hostile territory several hundred yards ahead of the rest of my team.
He had been my operator before he became my best friend and the Black Crowns VP, which meant he could read my silences better than most men read spoken warnings.
Neither of them asked how I was holding up when the answer was written plainly enough in the untouched reports on my desk.
Judge crossed to the chair opposite me and sat, placing the tablet across one thigh, while Hawkeye walked to the bar built into the far wall.
He poured three glasses of bourbon and handed two over to us before he toasted, “To Otis. The only civilian who ever told our president his work looked like shit and made him do it again.”
“Repeatedly,” Judge added.
I grunted. “He was usually right.”
Hawkeye’s eyebrow rose as I lifted the glass, and a faint line appeared beside his mouth. “That admission should probably be entered into the club minutes.”
“I’m already recording,” Judge joked, tapping the edge of his tablet.
“Delete it.”
They touched their glasses to mine, and we drank. The bourbon burned across my tongue and down my throat, loosening none of the pressure beneath my ribs but warming the place where it sat. The three of us remained silent, giving Otis the kind of tribute he would have preferred over speeches.
Judge eventually lowered his glass and unlocked the tablet. His thumb moved across the screen before he looked up. “I got the probate papers.”
“Did you contact Jack about buying the land?”
His thumb stopped above the screen. The pause lasted just long enough for Hawkeye’s attention to shift from his drink to Judge’s face.
“I did.”
“And?”
Judge drew a slow breath through his nose, and his eyes narrowed slightly as though he were selecting each word with the care of a man cutting the correct wire on an explosive. “Don’t think they’re interested in selling.”
The exhaustion and grief I had kept contained all week sharpened into irritation.
I leaned back in my chair and held Judge’s gaze until the muscles along his jaw shifted, because he had known me long enough to recognize the look and understand I had no patience left for verbal maneuvering.
“Talk to the grandson and make it fucking happen.”
Judge’s brows rose by a fraction. “That isn’t generally how probate law or private property works.”
“I’m not telling you to steal the ranch. Offer full market value, cash, flexible closing, and we cover every fee attached to the sale.”
“Ah.” Hawkeye settled one hip against the edge of the desk and took another drink. “For a second, I thought we were finally using the kidnapping clause.”
“There is no kidnapping clause,” Judge told him.
“There should be. Your contracts lack imagination.”
Judge rolled his eyes, “They lack felonies.”
“Same problem.”
“Both of you can fuck off,” I muttered.
Hawkeye’s mouth curved with quiet satisfaction, apparently pleased that he had managed to irritate me enough to draw a response. Judge merely lifted his glass and took another measured swallow, although the faint twitch at one corner of his mouth told me he wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended.
“I spoke to the family’s attorney,” Judge added. “Jack is apparently coming down to see the property.”
“When?”
“Next week some time. The attorney wasn’t specific, but Jack intends to stay at the ranch while deciding what to do with it.”
I nodded and reached for the tablet Judge had set on his knee, but he shifted it out of range before I could take it. The movement was deliberate enough to draw a look from me, and his expression became even more carefully blank.
“Fine. We’ll wait until he arrives and talk to him in person.”
“Stryker,” Judge began.
“All a city kid is going to see is several hundred acres of aging fences, a barn that needs constant maintenance, and a farmhouse old enough to develop a new problem every time the wind changes.” I picked up my bourbon and turned the glass slowly between my fingers, already calculating what improvements the ranch needed and how quickly Black Castle crews could secure the service road after closing.
“It won’t take much to convince him that selling his granddaddy’s ranch is the sensible move. ”
Hawkeye studied Judge instead of me, as though he had detected something hidden beneath the lawyer’s expression. Judge returned the look for several seconds, then glanced down at his tablet while the corner of his mouth threatened to move again.
“What?” Hawkeye asked.
“Nothing.”
“That looked like something.”
Judge locked the screen and stood, tucking the tablet beneath his arm with exaggerated care. “I was merely considering how educational this meeting is likely to be.”
“For the grandson?” I asked.
His gaze returned to mine, and the amusement he was working so hard to suppress finally flickered in his eyes. “For someone.”