Chapter 14
Gabriel has his boots up on the conference table of the Monarch Hills office, despite his brother Rio having already given him two dirty looks.
We’ve both admitted we’re over stakeouts and time on the road. There’s not enough business in Echo Valley to work in this town alone.
Gabriel nods. “I’m not interested in being on nights forever either.”
Rio glances up from his computer. “Will you get your fucking feet off the table?”
“These are my clean boots,” Gabriel argues.
Rio quirks an eyebrow. “Only a farm boy would think that’s a good excuse for bad manners.”
Gabriel counters. “Being a farm boy is an insult?”
He narrows his dark eyes. “That table cost nearly twenty grand, G.”
Gabriel drops his feet, one at a time, but mutters. “More money, more problems.”
“Nope.” Rio smirks. “You’ve been my problem since I was dirt poor.”
Enzo—Rio’s twin—doesn’t even look up from his computer but sniggers. Ava sits behind him at her workstation, sunlight catching the red in her hair. The two of them are so well matched, it still guts me sometimes.
When I got taken into captivity and was told to look after a terrified twelve-year-old young girl, I never expected to get attached. I didn’t expect her to be the one who anchored me back into the world when everything else fell apart.
Seeing her happy with Enzo is enough to make my heart hurt in the best damn way.
It’s strange how life works. I spent years planning to save us both… Turns out, she’s the one who saved me—and then found us both a place in Echo Valley.
Gabriel leans back in his chair and fixes me with that steady look of his. “As you were saying…”
I exhale. “I need to know you’re truly okay with letting it go.”
I don’t go back on my word. If he says he wants to keep Shadow Justice alive, I’ll stay.
But Gabriel doesn’t struggle with it. “I’m happy to spend more time with Lara. I’ll still need work, though. She’s launching her charity, so she won’t want to babysit me all day. If this conversation is some sort of heart-to-heart, I’d like to go back to ranch life. Something with the horses.”
His brother Santi walks over with a steaming coffee from the absurdly expensive machine in the corner. “I wondered how long it would take for you to come back and bother us all again.”
Gabriel flicks a gum wrapper at him. It hits Santi’s cheek. He laughs because he’s a tough-ass man but one full of humor.
This entire family built themselves an empire—horse training and breeding as well as a tech company worth more than some nations’ GDP. Shadow Justice was never going to be on their level. But when Gabriel and I started it, neither of us needed the money.
We needed grounding. A transition from who we were to who we want to become.
Gabriel has shares in GhostEye and a cut of the breeding business; he could coast off dividends for the next decade. And me?
The one advantage to going missing for thirteen years was that my investments kept growing while I had no way to spend or wreck them. Nearly a million dollars now, untouched.
It’s not enough to retire forever but more than enough to breathe.
Ava doesn’t need it—she’s making a quarter mil at GhostEye and about to marry a wealthy man to boot.
That leaves my unborn child.
And Freya.
God, would I love to spoil her…in more ways than one.
Gabriel studies me again. “What about you?”
Before I can answer, Ava taps a key and then swivels her chair toward me. “Why don’t you do carpentry or furniture?” she asks. “Everyone here knows you can’t handle a real job.”
I scoff. “Excuse me?”
“I meaaaan…” she draws the word out, smiling wide. “You can’t deal with having a boss.”
The boys all chime in.
“True.”
“Good point.”
“Fair enough.”
Ava raises her brows like she’s just won a small war.
I think about my workshop—the quiet, the smell of wood dust, the way the world settles when I’m sanding something real, something meant to last.
“Maybe,” I admit. “Still doesn’t feel steady enough.”
Rio shrugs. “Then make it steady.”
Everything is straightforward in Rio’s mind. He’s like a hard-ass Latino Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.
I’m getting him a mug with that on it for Christmas.
Woodworking is a passion, and if I could make it work, I could do it from anywhere, even if Freya decides Echo Valley isn’t the place for her.
“It’s not a bad idea.” Gabriel nods. “You’ve got time to make it into something.”
Santi joins the table. “I know people who want bespoke items. Hell, fancy sheds are trending—if you’re into that.”
Support.
Offered so easily.
It knots something in my chest.
The last time I leaned on someone, I believed we were building a shared future. My ex-wife proved I’d been the only one building.
Thinking about her circles me back to Freya in the shed. I let my guard down, and she made me feel good about the man beneath the armor.
Since I’ve known her, she makes me feel valued. Just being around her, the way she thinks, speaks, carries herself…the way she thinks my opinion is worth a damn.
There have been moments since our diner meeting in LA when I’ve wondered if the “friends” agreement is just another way to avoid the real risk.
Because friends don’t get betrayed.
But men who build futures do.
And the truth I’m starting to face is that pretending this is nothing doesn’t protect me. Freya is already at the center of my life—whether I reach for her or not.
The stew is almost done when the front door clicks open.
“Hey…” I stir. “I hope you like beef bourguignon because I think I nailed it for the first time ev…” I glance up and see her face.
She’s standing just inside the door, keys dangling from her fingers, shoulders locked tight. Features haunted.
I turn off the burner and wipe my hands on a towel.
This woman needs a hug.
I pour a glass of the ginger-carrot apple juice she’s liking so much and meet her near the couch. “Sit.” I hand her the juice. “Talk to me.
She lowers herself with a soft thud and I take the cushion next to her.
“Callum let me keep the Zoe Marshall case open.”
“That’s good.” I scan her features, and they don’t seem to agree.
She lifts her gaze toward the kitchen. “You don’t have to do this for me every day.”
“It’s the least I can do. You’re doing all the hard work growing the baby, and I get to reap the benefits in…” I glance at my watch as if I need to know the date, but I have the countdown memorized. “…One hundred and forty-eight days.”
“Is it actually?” She tilts her head.
“Yeah. Actually.”
She drinks some juice. “Love this stuff. Apparently, I need to be careful with Vitamin A, though.”
“Noted.”
She’s trying to act casual, and I’m pretty sure it would be obvious to even someone who hasn’t learned to read people for a living.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. “Because I’m here for it if you need to unload.”
She smiles tightly. “I went to the quarry.”
“On your own?” I can’t help the question slipping out. It’s not that I think Freya can’t handle herself, but even… What if she passed out? Got too hot? Anything.
There’s no signal out there.
I hate the idea of her being alone at all now.
“Yes. I was just going to check the site of the incident as if starting the case from scratch even though I know the tire marks are long gone and… I just figured, you start at the beginning, right?”
“Actually …” I start to correct.
“I know, I know…you start before the beginning. Which is why I wanted this case kept open in the first place.”
Now’s not the time for mentoring. I get that. But I do love that Freya and I have this in common. A love of justice. A love of the chase…the mystery. But I also know how quickly someone can get twisted up as a character in someone else’s thriller.
She inhales, shaky. “Something is really off. All the guardrails were loosened.”
“Loose or loosened?”
“Loosened. As in uniformly—maybe three threads left on each bolt. I was thinking how hard it would be for a Mazda Miata to go through industrial grade guardrails. Well, there’s your answer. They were barely held together. And there was no mention of it in the file.”
Shit.
She tightens, holds her breath, as if considering how to tell me the next part.
“What else did you find?” I ask.
“I think there was someone there…hiding.”
I bolt upright.
She hurries her words, sensing my concern. “I didn’t see them. They were in the woods, and there was this whole thing with coyotes…”
“Coyotes?” I nearly choke on the word.
The hell went on out there?
She scrunches her eyebrows together, recalling her time there. “I think the coyotes came too close to the person there, and they dropped something and it turned out to be…a wrench.”
This just keeps getting more fucked.
“Yeah…I know this sounds crazy, but on the drive back, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was someone there who either just undid the bolts or…and this sounds crazier, was there to tighten them back up. I just felt weird the whole time. Like…”
She lets her words trail off.
I have so many questions but I need to let her talk.
She continues. “The wrench was the same size needed for the bolts. I ran it for prints this afternoon, but it came up short.”
The thought of Freya alone at the quarry, with coyotes and now some dickhead with a wrench? Adrenaline floods my system.
“This is not sitting well with me.”
“What? The case?”
“No. Yeah, that and…you being out there alone?”
She furrows her eyebrows. “That’s not outside protocol. It’s a small town.” She straightens her shoulders to show she’s my equal. “Anton, this kind of thing is going to happen. I’m a police officer.”
When Freya expressed interest in law enforcement, I knew it would be hard to imagine her there out on the beat, sometimes in dangerous situations. I’m an ex-SEAL though, and in moments when I’d worry, and text, I’d tell myself she’s smart. She’s capable. Trained.
Training takes the edge off worst-case scenarios.
But now she’s pregnant. She’s tired. Her body aches. And there’s a little life inside her that isn’t supposed to be hanging out at the edge of a quarry.