Chapter 27 #2
Gemma nodded. “He knew you’d contact your brother eventually. Everyone runs to family when things get bad. Especially someone like you.”
Rainey’s throat closed. Six weeks. Gemma had been inside Valor Ridge for six weeks, sleeping in River’s bed, eating at Walker’s table, learning the ranch’s rhythms and weaknesses from the inside.
“Dating River gave me access to everything,” Gemma continued.
“The security layout. The routines. Who was protecting you, how they were doing it, when they changed shifts.” She adjusted her grip on the pistol.
A small movement. Professional. “I knew the minute Evander Cole walked through that gate with you. I knew the minute Brandt showed up. I’ve been texting Mal updates since the day I arrived. ”
Behind them, Tilly had gone utterly still. Rainey could feel the dog’s presence without looking — the weight of her attention, focused now on Gemma with an intensity that raised the hair on Rainey’s arms.
“River trusted you,” Rainey said. The words came out scraped raw.
Something flickered across Gemma’s face. Fast. Gone. “River trusts everyone. It’s his best quality and his worst one.” She gestured with the gun. “We’re getting out. Now.”
Rainey didn’t move. “Where are we going?”
“Turnout about two miles east. Hobbs is waiting.”
Hobbs. The name dropped into Rainey’s stomach like a stone. The patient one. The one who set himself between you and the exit and waited.
Gemma climbed out of the driver’s seat, keeping the gun trained on Rainey. “Out. Slowly. Hands where I can see them.”
Rainey climbed down. She stood beside the side-by-side and looked at Gemma across three feet of grass and knew, with perfect clarity, that she was not getting out of this.
Tilly jumped down from the cargo bed and moved to Rainey’s side, her dark eyes fixed on Gemma.
“The dog stays in the vehicle,” Gemma said.
“She won’t.”
“Then I shoot her.”
Rainey looked at Tilly. The dog’s ears were flat against her skull. Her chest had gone still, the way it did when she was calculating distance.
“She stays with me,” Rainey said.
Gemma considered this. Then she nodded, once. “Fine. But if she moves toward me, she’s dead. Walk. East along the track. I’ll be right behind you.”
They walked. Rainey in front, Tilly at her heel, Gemma three paces back with the gun. The track wound through scattered pine and open grassland, climbing gradually toward a treeless rise. The sky had lightened to the color of old bone. No sun yet. No warmth.
The turnout came into view ahead — a flat gravel pullout where two tracks met, probably used by hunters or ranchers checking fence. Two vehicles waited. A black SUV. A motorcycle.
Two men stood beside the SUV. Hobbs, lean and patient, his posture the same unhurried stillness Rainey remembered from the clubhouse hallway. A man with long dark hair who must be Creed, judging by the bruises on his face.
Evander had done a number on him, and she inwardly smirked at that. Good.
He stood with one shoulder against the SUV’s hood, arms crossed, his dark hair falling across his face. He looked up as they approached. His gaze moved from Gemma to Rainey to Tilly, and something in his expression shifted. His eyes narrowed. The line of his mouth tightened.
Then his face went blank again. Mask reset. He pushed off the hood and straightened.
Gemma stopped Rainey ten yards from the vehicles. “Here we are.”
Hobbs stepped forward. He didn’t hurry. He never hurried. “Ms. Beckett. Been a while.”
His voice was low. Almost gentle. Rainey had heard that gentleness before, in the clubhouse, right before he walked past her toward Roy Bishoff’s body.
“Gemma,” Hobbs said. “Good work.”
Gemma grinned. “Thank you. You’ll tell Mal?”
“You can tell him yourself. He’s on his way.
” He turned back to Rainey. “You’ve been difficult to find, Ms. Beckett.
Your friend Mr. Cole has quite the talent for evasion.
But everyone comes home eventually.” He gestured toward the SUV.
“We’ll be taking you somewhere quiet until Mal decides what happens next.
I suggest you cooperate. It goes easier. ”
Rainey didn’t move. The cold had worked into her bones. Her fingers were numb. Her lungs hurt with each breath.
Behind her, Gemma said, “In the vehicle. Now.”
Rainey turned. Gemma stood with the gun leveled at her chest, her expression composed, her finger now inside the trigger guard. The warmth was gone. What remained was clean, professional focus.
Tilly lowered her head.
The growl started low. Deep. A sound that seemed to rise from somewhere beneath the frozen ground, vibrating through the dog’s chest and into the morning air. Her lips pulled back. Her teeth showed white against the black of her gums.
Gemma’s eyes flicked to the dog. The gun didn’t waver.
“Call her off,” Gemma said. “Now.”
Rainey looked at Tilly. The dog’s hackles stood ridge-backed along her spine. Her front paws had dug into the gravel. Every line of her massive body had gathered into something coiled and lethal.
She wasn’t Rainey’s to call off.
She was Evander’s.
And Evander had told her to watch.