Chapter Fourteen
~ Jackson ~
I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee going cold between my palms, watching Rawley’s finger trace the farmhouse’s east perimeter on his hand-drawn map.
The paper was covered with notations in his tight block print—camera positions, motion detector ranges, the blind spot where the second wave of Peterson’s men had cut the fence line.
Three hours since the shooting had stopped, and my ears were still ringing with the hollow aftermath that came after multiple rounds in an enclosed space.
Cruz sat across from me, both elbows on the table, his attention split between the map and the tablet that held the security footage from the eastern camera.
He’d barely spoken since Rawley arrived—had just nodded at appropriate intervals and made the grunting sounds that meant he was listening without needing to confirm it.
Sterling’s voice crackled through the speakerphone in the center of the table, the connection dropping every third word in the pattern that meant he was running satellite instead of the ranch’s dedicated line.
“—confirmed four in the first wave, six in the—“ The connection dropped, then came back. “—three of them have military ID cards. All with—“ Drop. “—Peterson logo on the—“ Drop.
“Crystal clear,” Rawley muttered, leaning closer to the speaker. “Say again that last part.”
“I said they all have the Peterson logo tattooed on their left shoulder,” Sterling repeated, his voice coming through more clearly now. “Not the corporate logo—the older one, from when he was still running guns in Colombia. Looks like they’re old guard, not the new contractors he’s been hiring.”
I took a sip of coffee—too cold now, the bitterness that came from grounds that had steeped too long. “So they’re loyalists,” I said. “Not just contractors. That explains why they hit the house directly instead of going for the ranch.”
“They’re looking for something,” Cruz said, still focused on the tablet. “Or someone. This isn’t just retaliation for the intel we pulled in Istanbul.”
Rawley nodded once, slow. “They came in too organized for that,” he said. “Four armed men.. That’s not a revenge play—that’s a planned extraction.”
The conversation continued in the clipped rhythm of operational talk—casualty count, camera positions, what the second wave had looked like versus the first.
I let it move around me without fully engaging, my brain running the calculations that came with a confirmed attack—the logistics of securing the house, the tactical considerations of whether to stay or relocate, the problem of a four-month pregnancy in a combat situation.
Then Morales’s voice cut in over the radio on Rawley’s belt, breaking the rhythm we’d established. “Vehicle approaching the main drive,” he said, the words coming through with military precision. “Arizona plates. Blue four-door sedan. Moving slow.”
I went completely still, coffee cup halfway to my mouth, the situation going sideways suddenly.
“How many occupants?” I asked, already knowing the answer before Morales gave it, already running the math on arrival time and sightlines and whether the front room had enough chairs.
“Three,” Morales said.
I set the cup down with careful attention, making sure it was exactly where I wanted it, then tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling. “This,” I said to no one in particular, “is going to make the morning look like child’s play.”
Cruz looked up from the tablet, his expression giving away nothing. “You expecting company?” he asked, his voice flat and even, the tone that meant he was already three steps ahead.
“No,” I said, pushing back my chair with careful attention. “But my parents came anyway.”
Rawley’s eyebrows went up. “Your parents,” he repeated, not quite a question.
“My parents,” I confirmed. “No call, no text, no warning. They just showed up at the farmhouse I bought with my own money, on the land I pay taxes on, like this is 1982 and I’m still in high school.”
From the speakerphone came the thick silence that meant Sterling was deciding how much of this was his business. Then: “We should probably secure the perimeter before—“
“I’ve got it,” Rawley said, already reaching for his radio. “Morales, you copy? Vehicle with three occupants approaching the main house. Civilian family members. Stand down, but stay in position.”
The radio clicked twice in response.
I was already pushing back from the table, my brain running through the calculations that came with my parents’ unannounced arrival.
My father would park exactly where he shouldn’t—too close to the greenhouse, probably, or directly blocking the driveway where the ranch truck would need to get through.
My mother would have brought food—something with too many ingredients and too much salt, the kind that required hours of preparation and was always delivered with the fake smile that meant she was doing me a favor by noticing I was still alive.
And there would be questions. About the farmhouse. About the greenhouses. About the way I was standing now—one hand resting on the curve of my stomach without having decided to put it there, four months of pregnancy suddenly impossible to hide.
About the fact that I was an omega, not an alpha, and had been for the entire thirty years my father had been building his warped story about who and what I was.
“Jackson,” Cruz said, his voice level. “You want to tell me what the play is here?”
I looked at him across the table—the careful way he was watching my face, which meant he was reading more than I was saying. “No play,” I said. “They showed up. We’ll deal with it.”
Rawley was already on his feet, gathering maps and tablets with the efficiency that meant he’d decided the tactical part of the morning was over.
“I’ll tell the team to stand down,” he said.
“Full perimeter, but no visible weapons. Your call on whether you want me to stick around or head back to the main house.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said, the words coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “You’ve got enough on your plate with Peterson’s men.”
Rawley nodded once, his eyes on my face. “Your call,” he said. “But the offer stands. Family situations can get complicated.”
That understatement sat between us for a moment—the kind of complication that came with parents who’d lied about my designation for thirty years and were about to find out the truth whether they were ready for it or not.
I moved fast through the farmhouse after Rawley left, my brain running tactical scenarios the way it had been trained to do—entrance routes, sightlines, the blind spot where the living room window didn’t quite align with the porch.
The sedan was still two minutes out based on the sound of the engine, which gave me exactly one hundred and twenty seconds to figure out how to hide four months of pregnancy from the two people who’d known me the longest.
Into the bedroom first—past the dresser with the careful division of drawers, past the nightstand with its two phone chargers instead of one, to the hook by the closet where Cruz’s shirts lived now.
I grabbed the largest one—black flannel with the sleeves already rolled to the elbows, the smell that was just Cruz still clinging to the collar.
It hung differently across my chest than my own shirts did—wider in the shoulders, looser through the middle, the kind of fit that would hide the curve that had formed below my navel.
I changed quickly, dropping my own shirt on the bedroom floor and pulling Cruz’s over my head with careful attention. The fabric was softer than I’d expected—broken in through wear rather than washing, the kind of comfortable that came from actually living in your clothes.
The shirt fell past my hips in a straight line that disguised rather than revealed—exactly what I’d been counting on when I’d grabbed it. I adjusted the collar with careful attention, making sure nothing in the fit suggested the truth I was trying to hide.
Then back through the house—down the hallway, past the kitchen where Cruz was still standing at the window, into the living room where the blanket that lived on the back of the couch would serve as a second layer of camouflage.
I snatched it up with one hand, already calculating angles and sightlines and whether my father would notice the way I was standing now—one hand always drifting to rest against my stomach without having decided to put it there.
The blanket was wool—thick enough to provide actual warmth, heavy enough to serve as cover. I dropped into the armchair by the window with careful attention, positioning myself exactly where the morning light wouldn’t hit me directly, then arranged the blanket across my lap.
Not well enough to call it a plan, but enough to give me options if my father looked too closely or asked the wrong questions or did any of the hundred things that would force me to explain what was happening.
The blanket settled across my lap in a straight line that hid the curve completely—just a man sitting in an armchair on a cold Montana morning, nothing to see here, nothing to question, nothing to force into the open before I was ready.
Then I looked up and found Cruz standing in the doorway, his arms crossed and his expression caught somewhere between amusement and concern. He’d changed too—had traded the tactical jacket for a plain black henley that somehow made him look more dangerous, not less.
“Why are you trying to hide it?” he asked, the question coming out flat and even. “They’re going to figure it out regardless.”
I went still with both hands on the blanket, the question suddenly too present to ignore. “It’s reflex, maybe,” I said, my voice coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “Thirty years of being told one thing, finding out it’s another. Hard habit to break.”