Chapter 92
COLE
The girl sobs quietly in the corner of the trailer.
Not loud anymore. They never stay loud after the first few days.
Good thing, because it's fucking annoying. I lean back in the chair across from the surveillance monitors, boot heels propped on the table, bourbon burning down my throat. She’s lucky. I was this close to cutting her tongue off. Some men prefer the women they buy to be silent.
The rain hammers the metal roof overhead. Fucking Montana spring. Fucking miserable. If I didn’t have this mess Kelly left me to clean up, I’d be running my business from a fucking beach while drinking pina coladas.
I take another drink of my bourbon. At least Jake Callahan and his boys did the heavy lifting for me. I have another couple employees I might put on their path for them to take out.
I underestimated them. I underestimated Jake Callahan with his righteous fury and Mason Rivera’s sniper's patience. I underestimated the girl too, and her willingness to walk straight into hell for vengeance.
Dr. Lily Carter. I’d have recognized her a year ago if her last name hadn’t been different.
A slow smile pulls at my mouth as I pick up the photograph lying beside the laptop.
It's old and creased from handling. Two girls, eighteen and twenty-one. Blond hair. Sharp hazel eyes. The older one has her arm around the younger, protective even then. The defiant expression on both their faces is almost identical.
Sisters.
The resemblance is stronger now that I've seen them both up close. Lily has that same tilt to her chin, that same refusal to break even when she should.
One of my men steps through the door, rainwater dripping from his jacket. He's careful not to track mud across the floor—he knows better.
“Boss.” He nods his head in greeting. "We found her.”
Every muscle in my body stills. "Where?"
"Texas." He tosses a burner phone onto the table beside me. "There's more on the phone."
I pick up the phone. A text message glows on the screen beside a grainy surveillance image of a woman exiting a gas station at two in the morning. Baseball cap pulled low. Blond hair visible beneath the brim. Older than the girl in the photograph, worn down by years of survival, but unmistakable.
Mandy.
I set the phone down carefully and take another sip of bourbon, letting the information settle. Lily was wrong. Her sister didn't die thirteen years ago when Patrick Kelly put a bullet in her. Mandy survived—crawled away, disappeared into the system, stayed hidden all this time.
Smart girl, but not smart enough.
"How long has she been in Texas?" I ask.
"At least six months.” He shrugs. “Working under a fake name at a diner outside Amarillo. Keeps to herself. No close friends. No family contact."
"She know about Dr. Carter?"
He shakes his head. "Doesn't look like it. She's been off-grid since she escaped. No social media, no phone records that connect back to Montana. If she knows her sister's alive, she hasn't tried to reach out."
Interesting. Two sisters, both survivors, both thinking the other is dead. Both living in the shadows, afraid to surface because they believe the past will find them.
They're not wrong.
I lean back in the chair and study the photograph again—the way the older sister's arm wraps protectively around the younger. The way Lily leans into that protection, trusting it completely.
That bond doesn't just disappear because you think someone's dead. It stays with you. Shapes you. Drives every decision you make.
My brother, Eli, and I ran the business together—operational partners, strategists, equals in the empire—but we didn't have that sort of closeness. Emotional dependency is a liability, not an asset. When Jake Callahan killed Eli, it was a loss of operational advantage, nothing more.
Looking at Lily and her sister, I understand exactly what I'm seeing: pure vulnerability, the kind of emotional weakness that makes people predictable, exploitable, and ultimately controllable. Lily's bond with her sister is a weapon. She just doesn't know I'm the one holding it.
She walked into my warehouse tonight because she thought I had Mandy. She was willing to die for the chance to save her sister—even after thirteen years of believing she was gone.
What will she do when she finds out Mandy's alive?
What will she sacrifice to keep her safe?
I smile. I can’t wait to find out.
Draining the rest of the bourbon, I set the glass down with a soft clink. "Keep eyes on her. I want to know everywhere she goes, everyone she talks to. If she so much as sneezes, I want to know about it."
"Copy that."
"And pull surveillance. I want updates on Blackthorn Ranch—Jake, Mason, the pregnant wife, all of it. They think they won tonight. Let them think that for a while."
He nods and turns to leave.
"One more thing." I drop my feet to the ground.
Stopping at the door, he looks back.
"Find out everything you can about Harper Garrett. The deputy sheriff. I want to know what makes her tick."
His expression doesn't change, but I see the flicker of understanding. "Yes, sir."
The door closes behind him, leaving me alone with the monitors and the rain and the quiet sobbing from the corner.
I pick up the photograph again, running my thumb across the crease. Lily Carter thinks she's won. She walked out of that warehouse alive and went home to Mason Rivera's bed thinking she's finally safe.
I laugh to myself. Safety doesn’t exist for people marked, like she is.
She has no idea I'm already ten steps ahead.
Still smiling, I unbuckle my belt and head to the corner. I know exactly how to shut that bitch up.
Some men flirt like they don’t mean it.
But with Harper, Luke flirts like he already knows exactly how she sounds when she finally gives in.
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