Chapter 6
WYATT
Ididn't go back to Valentine.
Didn't stop at the hotel I'd booked three towns over. Didn't call any of my brothers to tell them I was leaving Texas.
I just drove straight to the airport.
The decision settled into me somewhere between Marfa and the interstate—quiet and certain, like my body had decided before my brain caught up. Three weeks of nothing stretched ahead of me either way. Might as well spend them somewhere that wasn't haunted by everything I couldn't fix.
Long-term parking swallowed my truck into its concrete anonymity, rows of vehicles baking under the sun, heat shimmering off windshields and hoods.
I grabbed my duffel from the bed—always packed, always ready, habits from a life that didn’t allow for hesitation—and walked toward the terminal, gravel crunching under my boots.
The main concourse buzzed with the usual chaos.
Families dragging luggage and crying children, businessmen moving with practiced efficiency, phones pressed to their ears like lifelines.
The smell of overpriced coffee and recycled air, underlying notes of jet fuel and human exhaustion.
I pulled up the email on my phone, expecting gate numbers and boarding times.
Instead, I got an address.
Executive Aviation Services. East Terminal.
I stared at the screen, reading it twice to make sure I hadn't misunderstood.
Not a commercial flight, then.
The woman at the main ticket counter barely glanced at me when I asked for directions, her attention already drifting to the next person in line. "East terminal," she said, pointing toward a corridor I'd never noticed before. "Follow the signs for private aviation."
The hallway was quieter. Cleaner. The lighting shifted from harsh fluorescent to something warmer, more deliberate.
Fewer people. Different kind of people—the ones who moved through airports like they owned them because, in some fundamental way, they did.
Tailored suits. Expensive luggage. Confidence that didn't need to announce itself.
The private terminal was smaller than I expected. Understated. No crowds, no chaos, just a sleek desk made of dark wood and a woman behind it who looked up as I approached, her expression neutral and professional.
"Hello," she said, her smile practiced but genuine enough. "Name?"
"Wyatt Dane."
She glanced at her screen, fingers moving across the keyboard with quick precision. Something flickered in her expression—recognition, maybe. Or confirmation that I was expected, that my name carried weight here, even if I didn't understand why.
"Yes, Mr. Dane. We've been expecting you." She handed me a slim folder, the paper thick and expensive between my fingers. "Your flight is being prepped now. The pilot will be ready for departure in approximately fifteen minutes. There's a lounge through those doors if you'd like to wait."
I took the folder, turning it over in my hands. Heavy stock. Embossed logo I didn't recognize—geometric, modern, deliberate. "Thanks."
"Our pleasure," she said, already turning back to her screen like this was routine. Like private jets and mysterious invitations were just another day.
I pushed through the doors into the lounge.
It was nice. Not over-the-top—no gold fixtures or marble columns trying too hard to impress—but nice in the way that whispered money without shouting it.
Leather chairs arranged in small clusters around low tables.
Soft lighting that made everything feel intimate instead of clinical.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the tarmac where private jets sat gleaming under floodlights, their white bodies reflecting artificial glow like promises of escape.
A hostess appeared almost immediately, materializing from somewhere I hadn't noticed, her smile warm and practiced in equal measure. "Mr. Dane, welcome. Can I get you anything from the back bar?"
I paused, the question landing strangely. "Back bar?"
Her smile widened slightly, like I'd asked exactly the right question. "Yes, sir. The back bar and its sundries are reserved for special guests."
Special guests.
I studied her for a moment, trying to read what that meant. She gave nothing away—posture relaxed, expression pleasant, waiting patiently for my answer like she had all night.
"Whiskey," I said. "Neat."
"Of course. I'll be right back."
She disappeared through a doorway I hadn't noticed, leaving me standing there alone with my questions multiplying.
I moved to the windows, watching ground crews move around the jets with choreographed efficiency.
Everything precise. Everything intentional.
No wasted movement. A fuel truck pulled up to one of the smaller planes.
A crew member inspected the landing gear.
Another checked something on a tablet, fingers swiping across the screen with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times.
Whoever Micah worked for, they had resources. The kind that didn't show up on org charts or in public records. The kind that moved in shadows and called it business.
The hostess returned carrying a crystal tumbler filled halfway with amber liquid, the glass catching the light and throwing it back in fractured patterns. In her other hand, a small glass jar—travel-sized, sealed with a metal lid. Cashews.
I stared at the jar, something cold sliding down my spine.
"Is there a problem?" she asked, her tone still pleasant but with a hint of concern.
"No," I said slowly, taking both items, weighing them in my hands like evidence. "Just … unexpected."
She smiled like she knew something I didn't, something she'd been told not to share. "Enjoy."
I sat in one of the leather chairs, the cushion soft and yielding, the tumbler heavy in my hand.
The whiskey was good—smooth, expensive, the kind you didn't find in airport bars or hotel lounges.
Probably single malt. Probably aged longer than some of the guys on my team had been alive.
I unscrewed the jar and ate a handful of cashews, the familiar salt and crunch grounding me in a moment that felt increasingly surreal.
How could they know?
Cashews had been my thing since I was a kid.
My mother used to keep jars of them in the pantry, rationing them out like currency because they were expensive and seven boys could empty a container in an afternoon, if you let them.
My brothers fought over everything else—the last piece of pie, the good sleeping bag, who got to ride shotgun—but cashews were mine.
A small thing. Insignificant to anyone watching from the outside.
Except someone knew.
Someone had done their homework. Dug deep enough to find details that shouldn't matter but somehow did. Details that said: We see you. We know you. We've been watching.
I took another sip, letting the whiskey burn down my throat, and let my mind drift back through the day like reviewing mission footage.
Valentine felt like weeks ago instead of hours.
The ranch sitting quiet in the valley, smoke rising from a chimney I'd never approach.
Roy Pacheco's weathered hands running over coyote pelts.
Mrs. Herrera's kind eyes looking at me like I was still the boy who used to order pancakes every Sunday after church.
The weight of reverence I didn't deserve settling on my shoulders like an ill-fitting uniform.
My mother's voice saying my name, pulling us back from wherever the disease had taken her for one perfect, devastating moment.
Wyatt. What are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be at the game with Sophie?
I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly through my nose, trying to release the tightness in my chest that had been there so long I'd forgotten what breathing without it felt like.
Sophie.
I hadn't let myself think about her in a long while. Hadn't let her name surface in my mind except in passing—a flash of memory quickly shut down before it could take root, before it could grow into something that hurt worse than forgetting.
But sitting here now, whiskey warming my chest and cashews on my tongue, I couldn't stop the flood.
Summers at the pool in Valentine, back when the world was smaller and the future felt impossibly far away.
Her laugh—loud and unguarded in a way that made everyone around her smile, like joy was contagious and she was patient zero.
The way she'd been shy about everything except her happiness, like that was the one thing she couldn't hide even when she tried.
Rocky road ice cream melting down her wrist faster than she could eat it, the chocolate mixing with marshmallow in sticky rivers she'd try to catch with her tongue, laughing when she inevitably failed.
The freckles that appeared across her nose and cheeks every June, constellations I'd memorized without meaning to, without permission.
The way she looked at me sometimes when she thought I wasn't paying attention—like I was something worth looking at, like I mattered in ways I didn't understand yet and probably never would.
She was my best friend.
We’d been kids. Stupid and young and convinced the world was ours for the taking, that nothing would ever change, that summer would last forever if we just believed hard enough.
She left the summer before high school—packed up and gone while everything still felt unfinished, like we’d hit pause in the middle of a sentence and never got to finish it. I spent the next four years pretending it didn’t matter. Pretending I hadn’t noticed the absence she left behind.
We saw each other once more after that. Orientation at the University of Texas in Austin, the summer after we graduated. A handful of days. Awkward smiles. Too much history and not enough time. Just enough to remind me of everything I’d buried.
Then I left.