Chapter 1-Benji
Some things you can outrun.
I learned that early.
You can outrun a bad house.
A worse man.
The kind of name that gets whispered behind your back before you even step into a room.
You can put miles between you and it, continents even, bury it under sand and sweat and blood and discipline.
That’s what the military was for.
Distance.
Structure.
A way to become something else.
But some things?
They don’t stay buried.
They follow.
They wait.
And when you finally stop moving?
They’re right there, staring you right in the fucking face like they never left.
I lean back on my heels and squint at the line of the roof, hammer hanging loose in my hand.
The late afternoon sun beats down on the Jersey Iron Ranch, lighting up the fresh-cut wood and the clean angles of the house I’ve been working on for the past three weeks.
My house.
The thought should feel good.
Hell, it does—in a way that’s hard to explain.
Solid. Earned. Real. Not handed to me by some bastard who thinks money makes him God.
I built this.
Me. Sawyer. Micah.
Every beam. Every nail. Every goddamn inch of it.
A place that belongs to us.
I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my forearm and take another look, scanning for imperfections out of habit.
There’s always something.
A crooked line.
A loose joint.
Something that needs fixing.
Same as everything else in life.
“Looks good from here.”
Sawyer’s voice carries across the yard, low and steady. I don’t turn right away. I don’t need to.
I know he’s leaning against one of the fence posts, arms crossed, watching everything like he always does.
Man’s built like a wall and thinks like a general.
There’s a reason he’s running point on this whole operation.
“Yeah,” I grunt. “Good ain’t done.”
He huffs out a quiet laugh.
“You been up there since dawn, Benji. At some point you gotta call it.”
I finally glance down at him. He’s got that look—half amused, half assessing.
But always watching.
Always calculating.
“Since when do you settle for ‘good enough,’ DeWitt?”
His mouth twitches. “Since I realized perfection gets people killed.”
I snort at that, pushing myself up to stand. My muscles protest, tight and sore from the work, but it’s a good kind of pain. Honest.
Unlike everything else.
I climb down from the ladder, boots hitting the dirt with a solid thud. The ranch stretches out around us—fences running straight and true, barns standing tall, a couple head of cattle grazing in the distance like we actually know what the hell we’re doing.
Which we do.
Or at least, I do.
“I got the north pasture checked,” Sawyer says as I grab a water bottle from the cooler. “Fence line’s holding. No breaks.”
“Good,” I reply, taking a long pull.
The water’s warm now, but it does the job.
“Last thing we need is one of those bulls wandering off before we even get a chance to make money off ‘em.”
Sawyer nods.
“Micah’s running numbers. Says we’re in a good place if we land that next contract.”
“Yeah, well,” I mutter, capping the bottle. “Contracts don’t mean shit if we can’t protect the goods.”
His gaze sharpens at that. He knows what I’m not saying.
We’ve got enemies. Comes with the territory.
Especially when your last name is Gunner.
I roll my shoulders, working out the tension that never really leaves.
It’s always there, coiled tight under my skin.
Part of me now. Part of him.
And I fucking hate that.
“I’ll finish the trim tomorrow,” I say, jerking my chin toward the house. “Then I’ll move on to the next build.”
Sawyer nods. “Well, it looks fucking great. Take the night. You’ve earned it.”
I almost laugh.
Take the night.
Like that’s a thing I know how to do.
Still, I grunt in acknowledgment and head toward the porch, my boots heavy against the wood.
The place smells new—fresh lumber, paint, a hint of sawdust still clinging to the air.
It should feel like a clean start.
Instead, it feels like something’s missing.
I step inside, the quiet hitting me like a wall. No furniture yet. Just open space and echoing footsteps.
Empty.
My gaze drifts to the kitchen area automatically.
And there she is.
Not really.
Just in my fucked up head.
Standing at the counter with her long hair flowing in the breeze from the open window behind her.
Laughing so hard, her brown eyes crinkle at the corners.
Telling me I’m doing something wrong while she fixes it with those quick hands of hers.
Once upon a time, that woman was everything to me.
Goddammit.
Why’d you do it, Esme?
My jaw tightens.
“Fuck,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face.
Three years.
Three goddamn years and I still can’t shake her.
Funny how she disappeared without a trace.
Didn’t take a damn thing with her.
Not the money in our account.
Just her old van and some clothes.
The rest of my stuff was boxed up and placed in storage.
With it was our wedding album. Couple of framed photos. The shot glasses we brought back from Tijuana, mismatched cups and dishes we flea marketed together—like someday she was just gonna return and take them all.
But she never did.
She just left. Gone.
Like I never mattered.
Like we never mattered.
A bitter taste coats my tongue.
Maybe she couldn’t stomach it.
Not after what she did.
Not after she betrayed me.
Took another man into our bed while I was overseas.
Not after she fucked Paul.
The name hits like a punch.
Paul Meadows.
My best friend.
My brother.
The man I trusted to watch my back when I couldn’t be there.
“Watch out for her, Paul. She’s my whole life,” I told him.
That’s what I asked him to do.
And I suppose he did.
Just not the way I meant him too.
I close my eyes for a second, the memory flashing sharp and clear—the video.
The message.
The way my world tilted on its axis and never quite righted itself again.
Her face.
Her voice.
Laughing. Leaning in. Saying things she should’ve only ever said to me.
My stomach knots.
I remember how I refused her calls after.
How I refused his.
What the hell else was I supposed to do?
The two people who mattered most to me in the whole fucking world broke my goddamn heart—and I was half a world away.
What the fuck could I do?
A harsh exhale leaves me as I drop down onto the unfinished kitchen counter, the wood creaking under my weight.
Paul’s dead now.
Drunk driving accident.
Gone before I could ever look him in the eye and ask him why.
Why her?
Why me?
Why did they take everything I had and burn it all to the ground?
I should hate them both.
Hell, sometimes I do.
But there’s something else there too.
Guilt.
Heavy. Suffocating.
The kind that settles deep in your bones and refuses to move.
Because I trusted her.
Because I left her there alone.
Because I wasn’t around enough to see what was happening right under my nose.
And because part of me—some sick, twisted part—still wonders if I should’ve known.
If I should’ve seen it coming.
If I could’ve stopped it.
I scrub my hands over my face, dragging myself back to the present.
Doesn’t matter now.
It’s done.
She made her choice.
He made his.
And I’m the idiot who got left standing in the wreckage.
I push off the counter and head for the door, needing air.
Needing space.
Needing anything but the ghosts in this place.
The sun’s dipping lower now, casting long shadows across the ranch. Everything looks calmer in this light. Softer.
Deceptive.
I lean against the porch railing, staring out over the land.
I fucked up enough of my life to know this place is good. It’s my only chance at redemption.
Jersey Iron Ranch is real.
And part of it is mine.
Not because my asshole sperm donor greased some palms when I wasn’t looking.
We are building Jersey Iron Ranch from the ground up—and it’s going well. It’s something I can be proud of.
Not Ace Gunner’s empire built on lies and backroom deals.
Not the crooked bullshit he calls business—claiming stock that ain’t his, squeezing every dollar out of men who don’t know any better.
I spit into the dirt.
I crawled fifteen hundred plus miles from where I grew up, and every inch of it was rough.
But it was so worth it.
Every minute I spent climbing to get away from that man and his poisoned legacy was fucking worth it.
Fact is, I hate Ace Gunner. Everything he stands for. Everything he is.
And I want nothing to do with him. I never did.
“I ain’t you,” I mutter under my breath.
Never will be.
But I’ve got his blood.
His name—because even though their affair was covered up my mother put his name on the birth certificate and named the bastard who was twice her age and seduced her during a summer job she took at his ranch.
God, I miss my mother. She died of ovarian cancer when I was just out of high school.
It’s the reason I left home and joined the military—before Ace could sink his claws into me. Because, let’s face it, money is attractive and prick that he is, he offered to take me home.
To have me live as a fucking ranch hand with his last name while his wife and legitimate children all lived in the big house like some fucking modern day Ewing clan.
Piece of shit.
It was real fucking nice of him, wasn’t it?
Sometimes, I worry I’ve got more of him in me than I care to admit.
Especially when I think about her.
My grip tightens on the railing.
She didn’t wait for me.
Didn’t explain.
Didn’t stay.
Just vanished.
And no matter how many times I tell myself I’m better off—I don’t believe it.
Not even a little.
Because the truth is? If she walked up that driveway right now?
I don’t know if I’d tell her to leave.
Or if I’d drag her inside and demand answers I should’ve gotten three years ago.
Either way?
It wouldn’t be clean.
Wouldn’t be easy.
Wouldn’t be over.
And that right there?
That’s the problem.
Because I didn’t build Jersey Iron Ranch to get tangled up in the past.
I built it to move forward.
To build something real.
Something that can’t be taken away. Something that doesn’t lie.
But even now—even with everything I’ve got going for me—I can’t shake it.
I’m not finished with Esme.
Not yet.
Even if that makes me a damn fool.
Because the truth is, I don’t want to believe it.
Don’t want to picture her in Paul’s arms, giving him what was supposed to be mine.
Don’t want to believe she threw us away like it meant nothing.
I huff out a dark laugh, scrubbing a hand over my jaw.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’s a dangerous thought right there.”
And dangerous thoughts?
They get men killed.
So I do what I’ve always done.
I shove it down. Lock it up tight.
Focus on the work. On the ranch. On the future.
Because the past?
The past is dead.
Just like Paul.
Just like whatever I had with her.
Right?
The word hangs there, heavy and wrong.
I stare out over the land as the light fades, shadows stretching long across the pasture—and that’s when I see it.
A plume of dust rising off the access road.
My eyes narrow.
That road leads past Sawyer’s place. Nobody comes out here without a reason.
The engine sound hits a second later, low and distant, carrying across the open land.
A vehicle.
No—a van.
Rolling slow, steady, like it knows exactly where it’s going.
“Expecting something?” I wonder, though no one’s near enough to hear me.
My gut tightens anyway.
Not curiosity.
Not interest.
Something darker.
The same feeling I used to get before a mission went sideways.
Before the first shot was fired.
Before everything went to hell.
I straighten, already moving without thinking, eyes locked on that rising cloud of dust as it creeps closer to the ranch.
“Yeah, whatever that is,” I mutter under my breath. “It ain’t good.”