Chapter 13 Hawk
HAWK
The road back to Bellamy Ranch feels longer tonight.
Maybe it’s because the highway’s empty. Or maybe it’s because I left a piece of myself tied to a chair in Reyes’s basement, bargaining with a man who should’ve been behind bars years ago.
The air outside the cracked window smells like hot dust. I roll it down farther, needing the sting of wind to remind me I’m still free. At least for now.
The steering wheel creaks under my grip as I think about what I agreed to.
A favor.
One favor.
No one gets hurt. Reyes promised.
Then again, what does that mean? Physically hurt? Emotionally?
Reyes’s voice still echoes in my head, smooth as poison.
Because no matter how I turn it over in my mind, I can’t see that man asking for anything clean.
Maybe he never calls it in. Maybe this was just a power play—his way of reminding me that even the Bellamys can bleed.
I didn’t need Reyes to tell me that.
I’ve done plenty of bleeding for the Bellamys.
The thought sits in my gut like a rock.
Mile markers tick by. My reflection stares back from the windshield, my jaw tight. The blue of my eyes is apparent even in the reflection.
My father’s eyes.
The thought makes my stomach twist.
Austin Bellamy.
A man who killed another man and called it justice.
I told myself for years I wasn’t him. That I saw the line and didn’t cross it.
But the truth?
That line’s been fading for a long damned time.
It started that night in the old barn when Falcon and I buried who we thought was Diego Vega. And then again when I let my older brother take the heat for something he didn’t do without speaking up.
Yeah.
Line.
Crossed.
I shake my head hard. I can’t go there now. Not tonight.
Not when Belinda’s missing.
That’s the center. Everything else orbits that fact until gravity gives out. Reyes and his twisted leverage will have to wait. A little girl is gone, and the longer she’s gone, the worse the odds get.
I press harder on the gas, watch the needle climb.
The ranch comes into view. Miles later, my own place.
I feel like an intruder. Like I don’t deserve the safety waiting at the end of that driveway.
I pull off the road before I reach it, easing under a stand of oaks. For a moment I just sit there, gripping the wheel, staring at the dirt lane stretching ahead.
What the hell am I doing?
Reyes has my blood. My DNA. My mistake in a vial. He could end me whenever he wants, and I walked right into it. I should’ve known better than to go back there, should’ve known better than to think I could fix this alone.
But what choice did I have?
Daniela’s life was in danger.
I close my eyes, picturing her face the last time I saw her—anger and worry twisted together. She doesn’t trust me anymore. Can’t say I blame her. I wouldn’t trust me either, not after everything I’ve done.
But I want to earn her trust back. Not by begging for it. By proving I can still be the man she thought I was.
That starts with finding Belinda.
I dig out my phone and hit her name. She picks up on the second ring.
“Hawk?”
Just hearing her say my name lands like a punch to the ribs. “Yeah. It’s me.”
“Where the hell have you been?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Try me.”
“I handled it,” I say finally. “Reyes and I came to an understanding.”
“An understanding?” Her voice goes sharp. “What does that even mean?”
“It means he’s not going to the cops, and I’m not either.”
“You cut a deal with him?”
“Something like that.”
“Hawk—” Her voice cracks. “Do you hear yourself? You can’t make deals with monsters and think they’ll keep their word.”
“I didn’t have another option.”
“There’s always another option,” she snaps.
I drag a hand through my hair. “Look, I didn’t call to fight. I need to know what’s happening there. Any word about Belinda?”
A beat of silence. Then, “I’m at Chef Charleston’s house.”
That catches me off guard. “What? Your culinary school teacher? Why?”
“Belinda stayed here for a sleepover the other night. Gwen’s house. We think she met with someone that night.”
My pulse spikes. “Met with someone? Who?”
Another pause. Longer. I can almost hear her deciding whether to say it.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she says finally.
“Try me.”
“The footage is grainy, but he looks like Diego Vega.”
For a second, everything inside me stops—my heart, my breath, my thoughts. The name lingers like gun smoke.
“Daniela,” I say slowly, “That’s impossible.”
“I know. But it’s on the security footage. He stepped out of the shadows for a second, and when the wind blew his hood back—”
“No.” I cut her off. “Vega’s dead. Twice over.”
“That’s what we thought,” she says softly.
I can hear the tremor in her voice, disbelief braided with fear.
“I saw him die,” I insist. “I saw the body.”
Though the body’s gone now. What the fuck?
“Vinnie said the same, but I swear it looked just like him.” She gulps. “It’s not a face I’ll ever forget.”
Nausea creeps up my throat. Vega. Daniela’s betrothed. Vega, who…
God, I can’t think about what he did to her.
I grip the wheel so hard it creaks. “Jesus.”
She exhales shakily. “Hawk…what if he’s really alive?”
“Then we’ve got a problem,” I say. “A big one.”
I stare through the windshield at the driveway ahead, jaw clenched, mind spinning.
Vega.
The name alone makes my blood run cold.
A fucking ghost that never stays buried.
“Stay put,” I tell her. “Lock the doors. I’m coming there.”
“Hawk, I have to get back home. But I’ll stay there. I promise.”
I sigh. “Fine. But text me as soon as you’re safely at Vinnie’s. I’ll meet you there.”
I lean back in the driver’s seat.
If Vega’s alive, everything changes. Every move we’ve made, every secret we’ve buried—it all comes undone.
I think of Vinnie’s proof. The photo of a body. We all wanted to believe it was over. That the monster was gone.
But monsters don’t die easy.
Anger climbs—same kind that drove me to Reyes, the kind that keeps me moving when everything else falls apart. But under it, something I don’t want to name.
Fear.
Not for me.
For Daniela.
For Belinda.
For a family still hanging by a thread.
I start the truck. Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull onto the road. I need to get to Daniela before Vega does.
The feeling in my chest tightens.
Because even if Vega is alive, it doesn’t explain everything. Belinda’s disappearance. Reyes’s return like a bad penny. A DHS officer at Daniela’s door with paperwork ready to strip her status.
None of it is random.
No. Someone’s pulling strings. Someone who knows exactly how to hit us where it hurts.
And I can’t shake the suspicion that it all leads back to Vega.
Who the hell are those two dead fuckers if neither is Vega?
My hands feel steadier on the wheel now. I’ve got a plan, even if it’s held together with string.
Get to Daniela, lock down the house, go through the security feeds again with Vinnie, cross-check the Charleston footage, get plate readers from the county scanners if we can wrangle them, hit the airport manifests, sweep the bus depots, call in favors I hate calling.
And I’ll do it all while pretending there isn’t a noose around my neck with Reyes’s name on it.
I blow out a breath. “We’ll find her,” I say out loud.
A shape scuttles across the lane—an armadillo?—and vanishes into the ditch. My pulse. I’m wound too tight. I force my shoulders down.
Another mile. Another. Another.
I’m a few miles out from Vinnie’s when the vibration slaps into me.
For a heartbeat I think it’s my regular phone. But the feel is different.
Not in a good way.
Slowly, I reach into my pocket.
The burner.
I pull it out.
One new message.
It can only be from Reyes.
His favor.
He’s calling it in already.