Twelve
CASS
The conversation with Brody was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
I found him pacing his room like a caged animal. He’d seen Walker’s truck. He’d heard fragments through the thin walls.
“He told you,” Brody said. Not a question.
“He told me. Now you’re going to tell me the rest.”
What followed was two hours of confession—halting at first, then flooding out like water through a broken dam. The auction. The stupid impulse to profit from what he’d seen. The way the ring turned his attempted blackmail into leverage.
“They showed me what they could do,” he said, voice shaking.
“The paper trail, all of it designed to make me look guilty. They said if I went to the cops, they’d expose everything.
And I’d seen what happened to the Castellanos family.
I thought if I just kept my head down, eventually I’d find a way out. ”
“By yourself.”
“I didn’t want to drag you into it. You’ve already got Dad, the ranch, everything. I couldn’t stand being one more burden you had to carry.”
The words hit somewhere deep. Not because they were wrong—I had been carrying too much, too long, alone—but because I’d somehow made my brother feel like he couldn’t bring me his problems. Like my strength was a barrier instead of a shelter.
“Brody. You’re not a burden. You’re my brother.” I took his hand. “You made a mistake. A bad one. But you’re not the villain here. The people who trapped you—they’re the villains. And we’re going to stop them.”
I explained Walker’s plan. I watched understanding dawn, followed by fear, followed by something that looked almost like hope.
“You trust Walker to pull it off?” he asked. “After everything he did?”
It was a fair question. I’d asked myself the same thing a dozen times.
“I trust that he wants to help us. I trust that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to bringing down criminals. Whether I trust him with anything else—“ I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. But that’s something I can figure out later. Right now, what matters is getting you out.”
Brody was quiet a long time, staring at our joined hands. I could see the war on his face—fear versus hope, shame versus determination.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll do it. But on one condition. You stay involved. Not on the sidelines. I want you there, making sure Walker doesn’t screw us over.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He managed a small smile—the first genuine one I’d seen in months. “Thanks, Cass. For not giving up on me.”
“Never. We’re Hendersons. We don’t give up on each other.”
That night, I called Walker. “He’s in. But we have conditions.
I’m involved in every step of the planning.
I want to know who your backup agents are, where they’ll be positioned, what the extraction plan is.
And I want to be in the surveillance van during the operation.
Not waiting at home to hear what happened. ”
A pause. “That can be arranged. It’s not typical, but nothing about this case has been typical.”
“Good.”
“Cass. Thank you. For giving me this chance.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You still have to pull this off.”
I hung up before he could respond and sat on my porch, watching the stars emerge one by one. Somewhere out there, people were plotting against my family. Planning their next theft, their next victim, operating with impunity because no one had been able to stop them.
That was about to change.
The next five days were a masterclass in organized chaos.
Walker brought in agents, surveillance equipment, coordination with local law enforcement.
And I threw myself into the planning with the same fierce competence I brought to running the ranch—asking sharp questions, challenging assumptions, demanding contingencies for scenarios no one had considered.
By the time we finalized the operation, I probably knew the plan better than some of his agents.
My kitchen became a command post. There were strangers with earpieces at the table where I’d eaten every meal of my childhood, maps of the Rusty Spur spread over the spot where Mom used to roll out pie crust. Marcus, Walker’s supervisor, turned out to be a weathered man with kind eyes and a voice like gravel, and he watched me work the plan with something between respect and worry.
“He told me you’d be trouble,” Marcus said to me once, quietly, while Walker was on the phone.
“Walker. When he first got here. Said the Henderson woman was going to be a problem.” A dry smile.
“He wasn’t wrong. But I’ve worked with him fifteen years, and I’ve never once heard him turn down a promotion.
He turned one down last week. For a town he’d never heard of two months ago.
” He let that sit. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between you two.
That’s none of my business. But for whatever it’s worth—that man is not pretending. Not about you.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I filed it away, though, the way I filed everything I wasn’t ready to deal with yet.
The night before, the three of us sat around my kitchen table, going over it one final time. Brody looked pale but determined—like a man who’d finally stopped running from the thing that scared him most.
“You’ll be in the back booth,” Walker said, pointing to a layout of the Rusty Spur.
“Vega always sits facing the door, so you’ll have your back to it.
Don’t worry—we’ll have clear sightlines.
This will transmit everything to our team.
” He set a small device on the table. “Just be yourself. Be the scared guy who’s in too deep and looking for reassurance. That’s exactly what they expect.”
“Because it’s exactly what I am.”
“Which makes it easier. You don’t have to pretend.” Walker met his eyes. “Just keep them talking. Get names, dates, specifics. Let us do the rest.”
Brody nodded slowly, some of the tension draining from his shoulders. “Okay. I can do this.”
When Brody stepped out for air, Walker turned to me. “He’s stronger than he knows. He reminds me of myself, honestly. Young and scared and desperate to fix something that feels unfixable. The people who push through despite the fear—they’re the ones who surprise you.”
“Is that what you were? Young and scared?”
“After my dad died, after we lost the ranch—yeah. The investigation work, tracking down people who hurt others—that was my way of fighting back. Of proving I wasn’t as helpless as I felt.
” He shrugged. “And someone has to. The people who run operations like this count on victims being too scared or ashamed to fight back. Someone has to prove them wrong.”
I studied him for a long moment, something shifting in my chest. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But maybe the beginning of understanding.
“Can I ask you something?” I said. “And will you tell me the truth—the real truth, not the managed version?”
“Always. From now on, always.”
“When you found out about Brody. That first night, before you decided to keep it from me.” I held his eyes. “Did any part of you think about me? Or was I just the asset who could open doors?”
He didn’t look away, and he didn’t reach for a comfortable answer.
“I sat in that motel room and the only thing I could think about was your face when you found out. Not the case. Not the doors. Your face.” His jaw tightened.
“That’s the part I’m most ashamed of, Cass.
I didn’t keep the secret because I was being a good investigator.
A good investigator reports it day one. I kept it because I was a man in love trying to buy himself three more days of you not hating him.
It was selfish. It was the most human, selfish thing I’ve ever done. And I’d give a great deal to undo it.”
It wasn’t an excuse. He didn’t offer it as one. And somehow that—the refusal to make himself look better than he was—reached me in a way an apology never could have.
“Okay,” I said quietly. That was all. But we both heard the door it left cracked open.
“Get some sleep,” I said. “Big day tomorrow.”