Chapter 3 #7
“But this is where my old family money connections come in,” JD continued. “It’s gonna be hot for a while. Eventually, I can get it to cool down. We’ll start pressing the plate back piece by piece, but right now?”
He stopped.
The silence made my chest tighten.
“You gotta get her out of here,” he said.
My fingers almost twitched against the blanket.
Skye made a small sound. “JD?—”
“They’re gonna want to question her,” JD cut in. “They’re already lining it up. But they can’t question her if she’s out of the country on vacation.”
My heart kicked.
Out of the country?
“They can’t send cops down there and sit on her forever,” JD said. “Not if she’s with people. Not if she’s recovering. She stays long enough that the bruises turn yellow and get covered by makeup. We buy time. We control the story.”
“She has a passport?” Cal asked.
“I don’t know.” JD cursed under his breath. “Private charter boat. No passport. Hell, I don’t care how we do it, but we figure it out. It’s getting hot. She’s gotta be gone by sunrise.”
Gone by sunrise.
The words slipped through me like cold water.
Gone.
Again.
Only this time it wouldn’t be running from monsters. It would be running from consequences. From questions. From a room full of people who loved me enough to set themselves on fire trying to protect me.
“The drugs are out of her system,” another voice muttered.
The doctor.
Regan exhaled like she had been holding her breath for hours.
“She needs rest,” the doctor added. “Actual rest. No shouting, no interrogations, no stress.”
That would have been funny if I had remembered how to laugh.
No stress.
Sure.
I would just file that beside no trauma, no betrayal, no dead mother, no powerful enemies, no bloody hands, and no reason for half the state to want my name dragged through the mud by breakfast.
Cal’s boots moved closer. I felt him near the bed without opening my eyes. The air changed around certain men. Cal carried authority like other people carried keys. Quiet, always there, impossible to ignore.
“She’s been through hell,” he said.
JD’s voice softened, but only by a fraction. “That’s why she can’t be here when the next wave hits.”
Skye whispered, “And if she wakes up and refuses?”
Nobody answered right away.
That told me everything.
They knew me.
They knew I would refuse.
Not because I wanted to be brave. I was so tired of brave. Brave was just another word people used when a girl had no choice but to survive something ugly.
But because leaving without doing one thing—one impossible, ridiculous, selfish thing—felt like stepping into a new life with an old ghost clawing at my ankle.
I heard the door open. Low murmurs. Boots. The doctor giving instructions. Regan saying something about fluids and monitoring. Cal telling someone to keep the hall clear. JD saying he’d make calls.
Then, one by one, they left.
I waited.
I counted my breaths until the silence settled thick enough around me to trust.
The door opened again.
This time, the footsteps were lighter.
Not soft exactly. Dylan would never be soft. He moved like a man who knew the floor might betray him, like he had been trained by every bad choice he had ever survived. But there was a looseness to him too, a lazy swagger even when he was trying to be careful.
“You awake?” he murmured.
I didn’t answer.
He came closer.
“Because if you are, Beautiful, you’re doing a terrible job pretending you’re not.”
My eyes opened.
Dylan stood beside the bed with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, his dark hair a little mussed, his face drawn tight around the edges.
He looked like he hadn’t slept either. Like none of us had.
Like this whole family had been running on caffeine, fury, and the stubborn refusal to collapse.
“You better not let anyone hear you call me that,” I whispered.
His mouth curved faintly. “Anyone specific?”
“Tarakk. Edge. Literally anyone who owns a weapon.”
“Your father’s already murdered me in his dreams.” Dylan leaned against the chair beside my bed. “Pretty sure he enjoyed it too.”
Despite everything, something small and fragile moved in my chest.
Not quite a laugh.
Almost.
I reached for his hand before I could talk myself out of it.
He looked down at my fingers wrapping around his.
The smile faded.
“I need a favor,” I said.
His brows lifted. “Darling, I’ve lost two lives already covering for you.”
“Beautiful,” I corrected softly.
His eyes warmed.
Then his voice dropped. “All right, Beautiful. What kind of favor?”
“A big one.”
“That’s never good.”
“They want to move me by dawn.”
He went still.
I watched the knowledge hit him. Not surprise. Dylan was too sharp for surprise. He had probably already heard pieces, guessed the rest, and filled in the parts nobody wanted to say out loud.
His jaw flexed. “Yeah.”
“So before they do, I need to go somewhere.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know where.”
“I know your face.” He glanced toward the door. “And that face means criminal stupidity wrapped in a pretty bow.”
“I need to see her grave.”
The room went quiet.
Dylan’s hand shifted under mine, not pulling away, just tightening.
“Mandy’s?” he asked.
I nodded.
The name was strange in my mouth even when I didn’t say it. Mandy. My mother. A woman who had given me life and left me with a thousand questions sharp enough to cut skin.
“I’ve never been,” I whispered. “I always knew where it was. I just couldn’t bring myself to go.”
Dylan didn’t interrupt.
That was one thing about him most people missed. He flirted like breathing, smiled like trouble, and moved through a room like he had already planned three exits and two sins. But when something mattered, when the air thinned and the truth stepped out bleeding, Dylan could be still.
“I need to talk to her,” I said. “I need closure before I can move on and put the past to bed. I need to… I don’t know. Respect her. Love her. Hate her. All of it.”
My throat burned.
“It’s confusing,” I admitted. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
His thumb brushed once over my knuckles.
“Trust me,” he said quietly. “I do understand.”
I looked at him then.
Really looked.
There was something behind his eyes I had seen before, but never close enough to name. A locked door. A boarded-up house. A grave nobody visited because visiting made it real.
“I’ve been selfish,” I whispered. “You’ve already given up so much for me. I’ve made you an accessory to my crimes.”
His mouth twitched, but his eyes didn’t.
“The wrong crime is what I do,” he said. “Not the life I would’ve chosen, but it’s the one I ended up in. We all have a story, Beautiful.”
I held my breath.
He leaned closer, his voice barely above the sound of the machines near my bed.
“I just haven’t told you mine yet. Maybe someday I will.”
Maybe someday.
It sounded like a promise.
It sounded like a goodbye.
I hated both.
“Please,” I said.
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he cursed under his breath and looked toward the ceiling like he was asking every saint and sinner in New Mexico why they had put him in this room with me.
“All right,” he said.
My heart jumped.
“But we do this my way.”
“Your way sounds bossy.”
“My way keeps Edge from burying me under a cactus.” Dylan straightened. “Tell them you need sleep before they ship you out at dawn. No drama. No sudden strength. No heroic speeches. You are pale, wounded, emotionally fragile, and very convincing when you shut up.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“There she is,” he murmured. “There’s the murder face.”
“I can still throw something at you.”
“You can barely lift your arm.”
“I’ll use my rage.”
“That might work.” He checked his watch. “I’ll come for you at ten-thirty. Nate can convince Regan and the others that everyone needs to sleep before they do something crazy and go off the handle. He’s good at making common sense sound like his idea.”
“What about the bed?”
“We fix pillows. Arrange them like a body. Pull the blankets up. You keep the lights low before then so nobody expects much. We’re gone and back before anyone checks too closely.”
“How long?”
“I have you back by midnight.”
“That’s not long.”
“That’s generous. That’s me risking what little remains of my dignity, my patch, and my oxygen supply if your father finds out.” He leaned down until his face was close to mine. “And if we get caught, I’m giving you the slip and you’re taking the fall.”
I smiled.
It hurt my cheek.
“Deal.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth for one dangerous second.
Then he looked away first.
“Get some rest, Beautiful,” he said.
But after he left, I didn’t sleep.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about graves.
By ten-thirty, the ranch had gone unnaturally quiet.
Not peaceful quiet.
Wounded quiet.
The kind that came after a house had screamed itself hoarse.
Dylan slipped in without knocking, dressed in black, because apparently subtlety had a uniform. “You sure about this?” he asked me.
“No,” I said honestly.
He nodded. “Good. Means you still have sense.” Then he helped me sit up. The room tilted for a second, and his arm came around my waist before I could fall.
“Easy,” he murmured.
“I’m fine.”
“You are many things. Fine is not one of them.”
He moved quickly, building a fake version of me beneath the blankets with pillows and shadows. It was disturbingly convincing once he tucked the comforter up high.
“That’s creepy,” I whispered.
“That’s useful,” Dylan replied.
Then he wrapped me in a dark jacket two sizes too big, and guided me through the back hallway like I was made of glass and gunpowder. Every creak sounded like a siren. Every shadow looked like Cal. Every shift of wind against the windows made my stomach twist.
But nobody stopped us.
Outside, the night waited cold and wide.
The desert didn’t feel empty after dark. It felt awake. The sky stretched black and endless above us, spilling stars so bright they looked impossible. The air smelled like sagebrush, dust, horses, and the faint metallic bite of coming winter.