Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Harper
I'm tapping my fingers on the table, nursing a chocolate milkshake that's dripping down the side of the glass and pooling on the napkin underneath.
I should wipe it up. I should drink it. I should do anything other than sit here vibrating with anxiety, but my stomach is in knots, and the milkshake tastes like chalk, and I'm two minutes away from sending a text that puts me in the hands of a man who runs a criminal empire.
This is fine. Everything is fine.
Hunter gave me my instructions on the phone last night. Go to Dusty's Diner. Sit in a private booth near the front door, by the window. At midday, text a number with my table and a description of what I'm wearing. Someone will come.
It's a test. That much is obvious. He wants to see if I'll follow orders. If I'll show up. If I'll sit in a booth in broad daylight and trust a stranger to walk through that door without knowing who it is or what happens next.
I won't go to Sterling Ranch. I made that clear, and I think Hunter understands why. He knew me when I was with Ace. He watched his little brother fall apart when I left. He probably doesn't want me within a mile of that property any more than I want to be there.
Or maybe Lola helped my case. I spent an evening with her last time I was in New Falls, helping her track down Hunter when he was in jail.
She was a breath of fresh air for that family.
I liked her. Liked her enough to help. And I think she put a word in for me, because Hunter's tone on the phone was cautious, but not cold.
I trust him because he's Ace's brother. Because he knows my parents. Because I don't believe Hunter Sterling is a bad person. Dangerous, yes, but not bad. And because I'm not here to destroy his family. I'm here to protect them.
And because Gianna Milano is expecting results. And Gianna Milano doesn't give second chances.
The clock on the diner wall ticks to twelve. I pick up my phone.
Me: Table 31. Blond hair and white top.
Send.
I take a sip of milkshake through the straw and stare at the door.
Thirty seconds. A minute. The waitress refills someone's coffee two booths down. A trucker at the counter is arguing about the Diamondbacks. The bell above the door jingles every time someone enters, and my heart slams against my ribs each time.
Then the door crashes open.
And a man walks in wearing aviator sunglasses and a shirt covered in flamingos.
Surely not.
He's tall. Broad. Dark hair under a black cowboy hat. A fading bruise around one eye that suggests he's been in a fight recently.
But the shirt. That eye sore of a shirt.
He pulls off the aviators and scans the room. His eyes land on my table card. Then on me. Then on the card again. Then back to me.
He freezes.
I keep my face neutral, watching him process. Something's thrown him, and I don't know what. Maybe he was expecting a man. Maybe he was expecting someone older, harder, more threatening. Not a twenty-six-year-old in a skirt with a melting milkshake.
He strides over. If he weren't wearing that shirt, he'd be terrifying. The shirt turns him into something else entirely, a bouncer at a tiki bar, maybe. A man who got dressed in the dark and committed to the mistake.
He slides into the booth opposite me and clears his throat. And when his dark eyes meet mine, I see it. That Sterling family resemblance. The jaw. The cheekbones. The way his eyes hold mine with an intensity that's genetic.
"Are you the journalist?" he asks quietly, leaning across the table.
"Yes."
He nods and sits back. I’m trying to place him. He’s not one of Ace’s brothers.
"I'm going to need you to come with me. In my truck. It's for Hunter."
"Yeah. I know. Hunter told me."
He blinks at me.
"Right," he mutters. "Finish your drink then." He tosses a fifty on the table for a four-dollar milkshake and stands.
I leave the milkshake and follow him out. The Arizona heat hits me the second we step outside. It’s easy to forget how aggressive the sun is here.
He opens the passenger door of his truck. It's a black F-250, lifted, mud on the wheel arches, a lasso hanging from the gun rack in the back window.
"This was easier than I thought," he says as I climb in.
"What did you think would happen?"
He laughs, then he slides in behind the wheel, shuts the door, and locks it.
Both doors.
"I'm not going to jump out of the truck," I say.
He glances at me. The humor drains just enough to remind me who his family is.
"I don't know you. I don't trust you." He starts the engine.
Fair enough. I don't trust him either. But I trust the process. I trust that Hunter Sterling is methodical, that he wouldn't send an idiot to handle this, and that this man is probably far more competent than he's letting on.
We pull away from the diner. The town slides past. Main Street, the hardware store, the little shop where Ace and I got our piercings. I look away from that one. Because even now, I get that pang in my chest.
Five minutes in, my leg starts bouncing. Ten minutes, my heart is racing. Because I know this route. I know these back roads, these fence lines, these hills. I spent years driving them with a boy who kept one hand on the wheel and one hand on my thigh.
"A-are we going to his ranch?" I ask quietly. Because if we are, this whole plan falls apart. I fall apart.
I’m “fake” engaged to Hudson. I have to get information for Gianna. Ace cannot get messed up in this with me.
He shakes his head. "Nah. Mine. Half hour away."
Relief. Then confusion. His ranch?
He turns up the music before I can ask anything else. And proceeds to sing for the entire drive.
By the time we pull up to the Lawson Ranch sign, two things have happened: I've remembered who he is, and I've developed a headache.
The crazy cousin. It floods back to me.
"You're Jett? Right? Or Tate?"
He laughs. "Jett."
Jett Lawson. Ace's cousin. I’ve only ever seen him in passing when I was younger. Although I always heard the Lawson brothers were completely unhinged.
He pulls up outside a large wooden barn, kills the engine, and jumps out. Comes around and opens my door.
"Now," he says, adjusting his hat. "This is where things get a bit tricky."
My feet hit the dirt. "Tricky how?"
"I'm going to need to tie you up in there."
My mouth drops open. I take a step back. Then another.
"N-no. Call Hunter."
He shakes his head. "No can do. I got my orders. Someone's coming by to see you in—" he checks his watch, squinting at it, "thirty minutes. I wasn't expecting you to be a woman, but I ain't going to hurt you. Just gotta protect my family." He holds my gaze. "You understand?"
A man, my ex-boyfriend's cousin, in a bright flamingo shirt with a bruised eye, is telling me he's going to tie me up in his barn.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever agreed to.
But then I think about Gianna. Don't let me down, Harper.
I don't give second chances. I think about the burner phone in my bag and the engagement ring in my purse. I think about the Greeks building an army near Ace’s land.
I think about the Sterlings, who don't know that I'm the only person standing between their secrets and a woman who could burn them all to the ground or become their greatest ally, depending on what I bring back.
I need Hunter to trust me. I need him to see that I'll play by his rules, even the ridiculous ones. Even the ones that involve rope and barns.
"Fine," I huff.
He grins. "Cool. Follow me to your stay on Lawson Ranch," he says, tipping his hat with a flourish.
"You do realize this is kidnapping, Jett," I say as I follow him toward the barn doors.
"Yeah. I realized that." He pulls the doors open. Inside, there is a single chair in the middle of the floor with a coil of rope on the seat. He's prepared for this. Kind of. "It's my first real go at it. I'll get better."
"I really think this should be your last."
He laughs, pointing to the chair. I sit. Because what else am I going to do? Run? I'm in the middle of Arizona, thirty minutes from town, on a ranch owned by a man who could bench-press my car. And the information I need is on the other side of this rope.
He ties my wrists behind the chair. Not tight though. For all his chaos, there's something almost gentle about it.
"Too tight?" he asks.
"No. It's fine. This is insane, but it's fine."
I used to love it when Ace tied me up.
"You want a water? I've got Gatorade too. Blue one."
I stare at him. "You're offering me a Gatorade. While I'm tied to a chair. In your barn."
"Hydration is important."
He grabs a blue Gatorade from a cooler. He has a cooler in his kidnapping barn. He cracks the cap and holds it to my lips. I take a sip because I'm thirsty and because this entire situation has crossed so far beyond absurd that refusing a drink feels like the weird part.
"Alright." He steps back and surveys his work. "Sit tight. Shouldn't be long."
"Where are you going?"
"Nowhere. I'll be right outside." He pauses at the door and turns back. "For what it's worth? You're taking this really well. Most people would be screaming."
"Most people haven't dealt with what I've dealt with."
He tilts his head and studies me for a second with those dark Sterling eyes. Then nods, once, and walks out into the sunlight.
The barn door stays open. I can see the sky without a single cloud. The birds are chirping away.
I close my eyes and just breathe.
It could be worse, I suppose.
I don't know who Jett is bringing here in thirty minutes.
But the knots in my stomach tell me my body already knows. I was dealing pretty well under the circumstances of being kidnapped. But the thought of Ace walking in here, seeing me like this for the first time, I’m suddenly really not okay. At all.