Chapter 2
STRYKER
Judge found me in Black Castle’s Protective Intelligence Operations Center a little after five, one shoulder braced against the edge of an analyst’s station while I reviewed a revised route package for a client moving through Central America.
The campus sat on the western edge of Sable Canyon, all glass, stone, dark steel, and polished corporate efficiency on the surface.
But nothing about the secure garages, layered access controls, surveillance divisions, training classrooms, or armed response personnel existed for show.
“Got word.” Judge waited until I signed off on the movement plan before lowering his voice enough that only I heard him. “Otis’s heir arrived at the ranch about forty minutes ago.”
I straightened, passing the tablet back to the analyst before I turned toward the exit. “Why the fuck am I only hearing about it now?”
“Because I heard three fucking minutes ago,” Judge returned, falling into step beside me.
I knew him too well to miss the sliver of amusement sitting behind his eyes.
“Estate attorney called to confirm they took possession of the property. Drove down from San Jose this morning and plans to stay a few days.”
I glanced down at the black tailored suit I’d worn for a client meeting and felt my patience thin.
“I’m heading back to the clubhouse to change.
That gives him enough time to unload whatever city-boy shit he brought before we ride over, explain the situation, and help him understand that loading it right back up is the smart choice. ”
Judge’s mouth twitched as we crossed through the secured corridor toward the executive exit. “You want me to do the explaining, or are you planning to open with that heartwarming pitch?”
“I’ll make the offer. You’ll lay out the legal and security issues in a way that makes accepting it sound like his idea.” I pushed open the exterior door into the restricted parking area. “You’ve talked worse men into smarter choices.”
“Usually because they were out of better options.”
We reached my truck, and I lifted my chin at him before climbing into the cab.
When I drove out, I left the western edge of town behind as I turned northeast into the backcountry.
The drive from Black Castle to the compound took us out of the clean corporate edge of Sable Canyon and into the northeastern backcountry.
Rook Holdings and the club controlled thousands of contiguous acres around the clubhouse—buffer land, private roads, natural ridgelines, training areas, and enough monitored approaches to make wandering in by accident nearly impossible.
The compound looked like nothing at all until someone reached the gate, and by then every brother on duty already knew who they were, what they drove, and whether they had any business being there.
I kept a room at the clubhouse, so I was able to change out of my suit as soon as I got there, trading polished black fabric for worn jeans, boots, a black T-shirt, and my cut.
Judge met me in the hall twenty minutes later with his suit jacket gone and leather over his shoulders, looking far more like the enforcer he was when he wasn’t turning arrogant attorneys into cautionary tales.
We were halfway to the entrance when Hawkeye stepped out of the armory, fastening the cuff of his riding jacket, his gaze moving from Judge to me before settling on the purpose in my stride.
“Jack’s at the ranch,” I explained. “We’re ridin’ out now.”
Hawkeye didn’t ask whether he was invited. “Good. I was starting to think the kid inherited several hundred acres and forgot California continued south of San Jose.”
Ghost was in the private motorcycle garage beside the clubhouse, wiping grease from his hands after adjusting something near the engine of his bike.
He lifted his head as we stepped outside, taking in our determined expressions and Judge’s tablet before he tossed the rag onto a scarred wooden bench.
“We buyin’ a ranch?” Ghost asked, pulling his keys from the back pocket of his jeans. As our sergeant at arms and a former SEAL, he had a gift for sounding casual while already preparing for trouble.
“Making an offer,” Judge corrected. “Try to keep up.”
Ghost gave him a lazy look. “Same thing after you start talkin’.”
Hawkeye swung one leg over his bike, the faintest curve touching his mouth. “Judge could talk a man into selling both kidneys, then bill him for explaining dialysis.”
I secured my helmet and looked between them, letting the humor run because they were brothers who had stood beside me through blood and the kind of work that stripped lies off a man fast.
No family functioned without a little bullshit, which was why Hawkeye could needle me and Judge could sit on whatever joke he’d been carrying around lately without either of them forgetting why we were riding out.
“We’re not threatening the kid or leaning on him with the patch.” I kick-started my engine. “We explain that a sale to a developer creates problems nobody wants. Then we make a fair offer that saves him years of repairs, taxes, and headaches.”
Hawkeye glanced toward Judge, then back at me. “And if he says no?”
“Then we secure the ridge another way.” The thought of Otis’s land ending up with anyone who saw it as acreage and not history was enough to piss me off before the conversation started. “But he won’t after Judge walks him through the numbers.”
Judge put on his helmet. “This conversation is going to be considerably more interesting than you think.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You enjoying yourself with something I should know?”
“Not yet.”
We rode out through the south, leaving the compound’s controlled perimeter for the narrow road toward the Rutledge property. I’d taken this same route at sixteen on a dirt bike held together by stubbornness.
The weathered Rutledge sign came into view less than ten minutes later.
Otis’s truck was gone, but a blue SUV stood near the farmhouse with the rear hatch open and boxes stacked on the wraparound porch.
I parked beside it and shut down, but before I could say a word, a raised male voice carried from beyond the house.
The female reply was softer but edged with enough steel that every man around me went still. “You need to leave before the sheriff gets here.”
The purpose of our visit vanished. Another man shouted something we couldn’t make out, followed by the metallic scrape of equipment shifting against concrete, and I was already moving before the echo cleared.
We crossed the yard without a word because years of working together stripped the need for spoken commands.
I went straight over the low rise, taking the route that would draw eyes to me first if anyone looked up and decided to make a worse choice than trespassing on Otis’s land.
Hawkeye drifted left toward the stacked hay bales, Ghost peeled right beneath the oaks, and Judge stayed far enough back to watch our six.
Three men stood outside the far barn in a loose half circle, their bodies angled toward the woman standing between them and the path back to the house.
A compact track loader sat halfway inside the barn behind them, its bucket lowered onto the concrete.
The decals had been peeled from the side panels, and the identification plate beneath the cab had been pried away recently enough that bright scratches flashed in the fading light.
The woman holding Otis’s twelve-gauge couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she’d planted her boots apart and settled the stock against her shoulder exactly how she should.
Her finger stayed straight along the trigger guard, her hands trembled just enough to prove she understood the danger, and the barrel never wavered from the largest man’s chest. That steadiness should have been the only thing I noticed, but it wasn’t.
Faded jeans cupped a full, round ass before narrowing around strong thighs, while a cream T-shirt hugged the lush swell of her tits and a waist small enough that my hands would nearly span it.
One of Otis’s flannels was tied around her hips, and a thick chestnut braid fell past the sweet flare of her ass.
My cock went hard so fast the denim of my jeans turned painful.
My mind supplied a list of filthy things I wanted to do with those curves while I had that braid wrapped around my fist. I wanted her thighs spread around my hips, her soft body pinned beneath mine, and her mouth swollen from my kisses.
Then one of the men shifted, and she turned her head far enough for me to see her face.
The lust got worse, but something else hit beneath it, deeper than simple hunger.
She had fair skin flushed pink with anger and fear, a delicate nose, and a mouth that should have been soft under mine instead of compressed into a determined line.
Her eyes were an impossible blue, wide beneath dark lashes, and the courage burning through the fear in them landed somewhere behind my ribs with the kind of certainty a man didn’t debate unless he enjoyed lying to himself.
The future settled into place with the quiet finality of a weapon locking into battery. I didn’t question the impulse. Not when there was a recognition so deep my body treated it as fact. This woman belonged to me, and eventually she’d understand that meant I belonged entirely to her too.
I didn’t know her name yet and didn’t give a fuck about the timing, because every protective instinct I possessed had already narrowed down to the men in front of her and the fear they’d put in her eyes.
There was a cold metallic taste in my mouth that always came before violence.
The idea of one of them putting a hand on her made my fingers tighten with the need to break bones.
The blond one spread his hands like a reasonable man, though his gaze kept darting toward the loader. “Your grandpa let us use the barn whenever we needed it. We’ve been keeping equipment here for years. He knew all about it.”
“My grandfather kept records for bags of nails.” Her voice was steady, but her chest rose and fell too fast beneath that tight shirt. “He didn’t secretly lend his barn to men who remove serial plates from stolen machinery.”
The corner of my mouth almost moved because Otis had absolutely kept receipts for bags of nails and could have produced them faster than most men could find their truck keys.
She knew him. More than that, she understood him, which narrowed the answer about her identity seconds before the blond bastard handed it to me.
“Come on, Jacqueline,” he practically whined, irritation cracking through the reasonable act. “You weren’t here enough to pretend you know every damn thing the old man did.”
Jacqueline.
Jack.
The answer stood in front of me with Otis’s shotgun braced against her shoulder and enough curves to ruin a disciplined man’s day.
Judge had known. That son of a bitch had read the will, sat in my office, and let me talk about Otis’s grandson while choosing every pronoun like he was laying a legal trap for his own entertainment.
I’d deal with him later, after I handled the men currently threatening the woman my body, brain, and every inconvenient instinct had claimed in under a minute.
Jacqueline’s eyes narrowed, anger pushing through the fear until the blush across her cheekbones deepened. “I know he never mentioned you, and I know that loader doesn’t belong to any of you. The sheriff can sort out the rest when he gets here.”
The man closest to her glanced at the blond one, then started forward with both palms showing, pretending to soothe while his weight shifted onto the balls of his feet. He was big enough to be used to women backing down, and stupid enough to mistake soft for helpless.
His right shoulder angled toward the shotgun. “You don’t want to point that thing at anybody, sweetheart. Give it to me before you hurt yourself.”
Jacqueline drew a tight breath through her nose and centered the barrel on his chest. Her lower lip trembled once before she pressed it firm, and that tiny effort to hold herself steady made the violence in me go very quiet.
“I know how to use it.”
“I’m sure you think you do.”
He took another step, and I walked down the slope without hurrying, my boots striking hard ground with enough weight to pull every gaze toward me.
The blond man’s face drained when he saw my cut.
The one in the cap turned and found Ghost emerging from the shade.
The bastard advancing on Jacqueline glanced over his shoulder, measured the distance between us, and decided he still had time to take the gun.
“Take one more step toward her, and I’ll break you,” I warned.
Recognition flickered across his face. So did fear. Then desperation shoved both aside, and he lunged for the barrel.
I reached him before his hand touched the shotgun, caught his right wrist, and drove my other palm beneath his elbow.
The joint gave with a sharp crack when I rotated through his center and forced it the wrong direction, his scream cutting through the yard as I turned his body away from Jacqueline and swept his leg.
He hit the dirt face-first, and I planted one boot between his shoulder blades before he could roll.
Hawkeye moved at the same time, striking the blond man beneath the jaw and pinning him against the loader’s rubber track with one arm twisted behind his back.
Ghost slipped under a wild punch from the man in the cap, buried a short strike into his ribs, and put him on the concrete hard enough that dust jumped beneath him.
Three threats down, controlled, breathing, and no longer close enough to reach her.
“Stay the fuck down.” I eased pressure off before I broke something I hadn’t intended to yet, then stepped over him and put myself between Jacqueline and every man on the ground. “You reach for her again, the other arm is next.”
She still held the shotgun, but the barrel had dipped several inches.
Her hands were white around the stock, her chest lifting in quick, shallow breaths, and the end of her braid trembled against her hip even though her chin stayed up.
So fucking brave. Scared out of her mind and still standing like Otis himself had planted her there.
I hooked two fingers beneath her chin and tipped her face up before she could keep staring at the man in the dirt. Her gaze snapped to mine, blue eyes wide and bright, fear still there but already giving ground to something else when my thumb settled near the soft curve beneath her lower lip.
“You hurt?”
“No,” she whispered, swallowing against my fingers. “I’m okay.”