Chapter 7
I had five days until I was supposed to see Delilah again. But this trip to Starlight Canyon, to say goodbye to the family ranch, has cut the clock in half.
It's not that David isn't still working while I'm here, but my responses are slow, and Enzo set up the tools at GhostEye so tightly that David seems to need my clearance every time he needs to take a piss.
He still hasn't found the car that picked up the women at the airport, and Delilah has already asked more than once to move our meeting sooner.
She didn't like hearing no.
Unfortunately for both of us, this trip to New Mexico was non-negotiable.
The family ranch in Starlight Canyon has been on the market since Dad moved to Echo Valley.
The land and house sat untouched, but Murphy's fucking law, the sale goes through when being away from my desk carries risk.
But this is my family, and they always come first.
Not to mention, there isn't a reason apart from the truth that would convince Enzo I should hang back. I can't send alarm bells ringing.
So here we are at the far edge of the land, the view I'm sure all of us have consumed in our best and worst of times. In the distance, the Rockies surge up out of the earth, a reminder of how small we are.
The sale went through, and Dad needed to say a proper goodbye. It was only fitting that all of us came. My brothers. My sister Shay. One last look at the place that raised us. The place that still feels like Mom.
The wind pushes through the rickety, old fence posts, making the wire hum low and hollow. The sound carries out across the canyon the same way it did when I was a kid, when this land was the whole world and my brothers and I used to toss around dreams after long days in the saddle.
I look out toward the mountains. The only dream I ever had was simple: never be poor again. For all of us to have security.
I wanted it from a young age when I saw that some kids got new boots every September for school starting and we didn't. When my friends in high school would get a new car or a horse, we had to fix or break ours, respectively. We didn't have much, even in the good years.
The fence creaks under the weight of six people leaning against it.
Dad is in the middle; the rest of us siblings are strung out along the rails like fence posts he drove into the ground himself.
Each of us holds a beer, the local delicacy, a Chimayo Blondie.
The corner of my mouth kicks up at the sight of everyone staring out at those mountains, together.
Yeah, some kids had fresh leather boots every September.
Brand-new trucks when they turned sixteen.
Horses that hadn't already lived half a life before they got to them.
We didn't. What we had instead was this.
Six people leaning on the same fence line, looking out at the same stretch of land that raised us.
This land turned us into a pack. A family that would never turn away from each other.
It's not something I ever take for granted.
But that didn't stop me wanting more. The truck. The boots. The security. The feeling that if something went wrong tomorrow, there wasn't an ounce of uncertainty.
Shay nudges Santi with her elbow and points in the distance. "Do you remember when you tried to rope tumbleweed out there?"
Santi snorts. "Yeah. It was good training."
She laughs, looking back out into the distance. "You almost got one."
This ranch was hard. Long days in the saddle.
Fences that never stayed fixed. Winters that tried their best to wipe out a season's worth of work.
But it was also beautiful in the way that often hard things are.
It built resilience. It taught us to value things you can't see — loyalty, trust, showing up for each other when it mattered.
It also made me want more in that relentless way only people who start with nothing really understand.
Yeah, we didn't have much. But my mom and dad sure as hell knew how to celebrate it.
When Enzo and I had our birthdays roll around — or any of us — we didn't look forward to the gifts.
We looked forward to the occasion. Mom and Dad could throw a party out of nothing but good food, cold beer, mariachi, and whoever happened to wander up the drive that night.
Somehow, it always felt like the whole world had shown up for us.
Starlight Canyon hasn't changed. You'd think this place would look different the day you sign it away but the pasture still runs out toward the creek where Santi used to swear he saw a mountain lion when he was ten.
The west ridge still turns purple first when the light drops behind the Rockies. Yeah, everything looks the same.
Except it isn't ours anymore.
Santi takes a long pull from his beer. "Dad, did you tell them about the south pasture?" He squints down the slope. "That grass needs to be babied like a golf course. Can't be overgrazed or it will never grow back."
"That pasture hasn't belonged to you for five minutes, and you're already telling the new owners how to run it," Gabriel says.
Santi shrugs without looking at him. "Just saying."
The sigh Dad lets out is sentimental. "Yeah. I told them. Typed up a whole three-ring binder of notes."
Gabriel hums in approval and stands straight. Even leaning against the fence, his shoulders square the way they drilled into him in the military. Some habits don't leave a man.
Shay stands on the other side of Dad, quiet, one boot hooked on the bottom rail. The wind keeps catching her long, dark hair, blowing it across her face. She looks so much like our mom now that she's in her thirties.
Shay lived at the ranch longer than any of us, until only a couple of years ago. The mixture of ache and satisfaction on her features matches Dad’s. The sale is a bigger deal for her than for us.
Shay went to college right after Mom died, but Dad fell into a deep depression, and the house started feeling too quiet. After a lot of discussions — and a lot of fighting — she moved back home to be with him.
In the end, it was probably the right call. She only went to college because she got in. Her real passion was baking, and she didn't need eighty grand in debt to figure that out.
I was torn in a million directions back then.
I'd already finished college in Sacramento.
Enzo, too. Gabriel was in the military. Santi was doing pretty damn well on the rodeo circuit.
Enzo and I were in those early years of believing we could be entrepreneurs while spending every penny to prove it.
Dad needed support — financial and emotional. When Shay quit school, it broke my heart for her. Not because she needed college to be happy, but because I wanted her to go be a stupid kid for a while instead of taking care of our depressed father.
Thankfully, everything worked out for her and Logan, and she has a cute, genius kid and one more on the way. We all made it happen together in the end.
The family is happy now.
It took years to get here. Years of Enzo and me grinding out success at GhostEye, building something that could finally give everyone breathing room. I glance over at Enzo, staring out into the canyon with a furrowed brow.
We're a good team. My twin moves through the world like it's something to build. I move through it like it's something to hold together. And hold it together I will. Not just then, but now. Always.
Which makes people like Delilah dangerous. She has no clue what this family has been through. I'll fight until I'm raw to keep them safe. Happy. Able to buy new boots every September if they damn well feel like it.
I can't let her take me down. If she ruins me as CEO, she ruins the share price my whole family depends on for their freedom.
Dad takes a slow breath beside Shay and stares out at the view like he's memorizing it. "This view," he says, almost to himself. "Your mom always liked this spot best."
Nobody answers right away, but the wind across my cheek turns warm for a moment, as if she heard him.
Gabriel clears his throat. Nobody says anything, but we all know what he's about to do. He pours out some beer onto the grass below. "Pa' ti, mamá."
Five bottles tilt forward over the dirt. Beer hits the dry ground in a soft hiss and disappears almost instantly into the dust.
Dad chuckles. "She would have said that was a waste of good beer."
Shay laughs lightly as she watches it soak in. "Remember how she always said the fence line wasn't a bar?"
Santi snorts.
I look down the line — my father, my brothers, my sister — and my ribcage goes tight. We're not kids anymore. But standing here with the mountains before us, it almost feels like we could be. Before everything went sideways. Before hospitals, the funeral and the quiet house that came after.
Now we're all together again in Echo Valley. Well, almost. Shay's still up here, but I know Logan takes good care of her. Still, I wish they'd move up by us, too. I like having everyone I love in one place. Where I can see them. Where I know they're safe — where I can sense when something's off.
Control isn't the right word for it.
It's protection.
Because problems don't usually announce themselves. They creep in quietly, just like Delilah did.
She started as a name on my calendar I barely noticed. She's been pushing me to meet sooner. Five days was the deal. Her timeline, not mine. But she's asked to move it up, texting me constantly.
Sooner. Tomorrow. Now.
She's trying to control me. Change the rules.
Santi hops the fence for one more wander down the valley, Shay laughs at something Dad said, Enzo is now quiet down at the gate where he examines a latch that isn't closing just right.
This is what I protect. A family that clawed its way out of lean years and grief that almost swallowed us whole.
A father who finally learned how to laugh again.
A sister who sacrificed more than any of us deserved.
Brothers who would burn the world down before they let anything touch the rest of us.
The sun sinks behind the Rockies. Purple creeps deeper into the stone. It'll be dark out here soon.
Darkness has a way of bringing trouble with it, and lately, trouble has a name.