Chapter Four
Leona
I do not sleep.
Not really.
I drift in and out of something thin and restless, never sinking deep enough to lose awareness completely.
Every sound carries too sharply through the dark.
The old house settling. The whisper of wind against the porch screens.
The soft creak of tree branches brushing one another beyond the windows.
And underneath it all is the memory of him.
Not just his face, though that has fixed itself in my mind with irritating clarity.
It is the feeling of him that lingers. The hard certainty in his voice.
The way he moved across my yard like he belonged in every space he entered.
The cold, disciplined weight of his attention.
Men are so often loud in their power, eager to display it.
Marius did not need to display anything.
He stood there and let certainty do the work for him.
I hate how deeply that unsettles me. I hate even more that some traitorous part of me did not feel only fear.
At a little past three in the morning, I give up on sleep altogether.
I throw back the blankets, pull on a sweatshirt and thick socks, and pad downstairs in the dark, careful on the old wood steps that like to groan under sudden weight.
The house is cool and silent, wrapped in that strange, intimate stillness only nighttime can create.
I flick on the kitchen light and immediately regret it, squinting against the brightness.
The shotgun still leans where I left it, tucked behind the pantry door.
I stare at it for a moment, then look away.
Not because I am dismissing the danger, only because seeing it there makes everything feel too real.
Less like an encounter I can explain away and more like the beginning of some shift I did not ask for.
I cross to the sink and fill the kettle, hands moving through familiar motions as my thoughts chase themselves in circles.
Someone used your property to move something that belongs to me. I still do not know what that means. Drugs, maybe. Guns. Cash. Something worse.
Nothing about him felt small. Not the vehicle, not the men with him, not the way they followed his lead without question.
There was money there, yes, but not the harmless kind.
Not the polished, respectable kind people like to pretend is not still built on threat.
Whatever world Marius de Witt comes from, it is one where men vanish because other men decide they should.
And for some reason, that world rolled straight down my gravel drive and stopped in front of Briar Hollow.
The kettle begins to hum softly. I brace both hands on the counter and exhale.
Outside the kitchen window, darkness pools over the yard.
The porch light throws a shallow amber circle across wet boards and slick grass, but beyond that the property disappears into shadow.
The barn stands hulking and still. The tree line beyond it looks almost liquid in the pre dawn black.
One of my men will remain nearby tonight. I still do not know if he meant that as reassurance or threat. Maybe both.
I wrap my arms around myself and stare harder into the dark, as if I might catch some sign of movement between the trees. Nothing moves. No headlights. No silhouette. No flicker of a cigarette ember.
But that does not mean no one is there. That is the part I understand too well. Predators do not always announce themselves.
When the kettle whistles, sharp and sudden, I jerk like an idiot and mutter a curse under my breath. Diego, somewhere in the covered aviary out back, answers with an indignant squawk that sounds suspiciously judgmental.
“Sorry,” I mutter, though I am not sure whether I mean it for the bird or myself.
I make tea I barely taste and stand at the counter drinking it in slow, distracted sips. Eventually I check the locks again even though I already know they are secure. Then I check the back mudroom door. Then the windows in the sitting room. Then the porch.
Still nothing.
By the time dawn begins to thin the horizon into a pale gray wash, I manage maybe another hour on the couch, curled under an old quilt with the television on mute just to have something flickering in the room besides my own thoughts.
At six thirty, the animals start demanding breakfast whether I have slept or not.
I push myself upright with a groan and drag a hand over my face.
I feel brittle, over aware, like every nerve in my body has been stretched too tight overnight.
But the farm does not care how dramatic my evening has been.
The farm wants feed, water, medication, fresh straw, clean bowls, secured gates.
Routine is a mercy.
By seven, I am outside, moving through the damp morning with a clipboard tucked under one arm and coffee in a travel mug that is already going cold. The air smells washed clean after rain. Wet dirt. Pine. Hay. The faint metallic tang of the enclosures. Mist still clings low over the back pasture.
I check the perimeter first. Not because I want to admit I am checking, but because my feet take me there without asking permission.
The fence line near the road shows nothing obvious beyond the softened ruts left by the SUV tires.
Rain has blurred most of the details into mud.
I walk farther than necessary anyway, eyes scanning the woods beyond the property, ears tuned to every sound.
Water dripping from branches. A squirrel skittering through leaf litter. The far-off cry of a morning bird.
No man in sight. No sign of anyone lingering. And yet the back of my neck prickles the entire time. I stop near the far enclosure and rest one hand against the top rail of the fence.
This is ridiculous, I tell myself. I am letting one man with a dangerous face and a controlled voice infect everything around me. The woods are still the woods. The morning is still the morning. Briar Hollow is still Briar Hollow.
But the land feels changed anyway. Not truly changed. Only seen differently. That is unnerving enough.
Freya paces over from the other side of the enclosure, pale eyes steady. I crouch outside the fence and let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.
“Do not start,” I murmur.
Freya huffs once and sits.
I smile despite myself. “Exactly. That is what I said.”
I stay there for a moment, grounded by the simple reality of the wolf’s presence. Warm breath clouding in the cool air. Damp fur catching the early light. Nothing hidden. Nothing false.
When I rise and move on, the day pulls me into itself the way it always does.
Diego wants attention and then rejects it immediately. The lemurs are already plotting something annoying. The serval remains regal and unimpressed. One of the wallabies has decided a feed scoop is now the enemy.
By eight-thirty, I have fallen into the rhythm of labor enough that my thoughts stop circling him every other second. Not completely, just enough to function.
I am hauling a bale apart near the secondary barn when I remember the raccoon. I straighten so fast bits of hay slide down the front of my sweatshirt.
“Damn it.”
Nora’s call. Blue paint. Attic. This afternoon.
I close my eyes briefly, then glance toward the house as if the calendar taped to the fridge might somehow appear out here and absolve me of responsibility.
No such luck.
I check the time on my phone and grimace. If I stay on schedule, finish the midday rounds early, and skip lunch like a responsible idiot, I can probably leave for the rescue by one and be back before evening chores.
Assuming, of course, that no other strange Dutch men materialize out of the woods first. The thought comes so suddenly and so dryly that I almost laugh.
Almost.
Instead, I set the hay down harder than necessary and stare across the property again. Questions needle at me now, persistent and sharp.
Who were the men with him?
Not just hired muscle. That is obvious. There was something disciplined in the way they moved, the way they watched without fidgeting, the way they seemed accustomed to taking direction without repeating or questioning it.
Not bodyguards exactly. Not just that. Men used to violence, probably.
Men who know how to wait. Men who understand where authority sits and do not test it.
And Marius.
I press my lips together.
It is annoying how easily my mind supplies his face.
Pale hair. Brutal stillness. Cold blue eyes.
The faint accent that sharpened certain words into something more precise, more dangerous.
He looked less like a man from the modern world and more like something dragged out of a harsher century and dropped onto my land by mistake.
Or not by mistake.
He likes control. That much is obvious. Not sloppy domination.
Not bluster. Control in the cleanest, most unnerving sense.
Of himself. Of other people. Of the space around him.
The kind of man who could sit perfectly still for an hour and make everyone else in the room feel like they were the ones under strain.
I hate that I find that compelling.
No.
Not compelling.
Impossible to ignore.
There is a difference.
I bend to grab the hay again, more to give myself something physical to do than because the task needs doing. Work first. Thinking later. That has always been my method.
But today, my thoughts refuse to stay filed away.
What was he looking for?
How long had his men been on my land before he arrived?
Is someone still out there watching Briar Hollow because he ordered them to, or because whatever problem he represents runs deeper than one night’s intimidation?
And why, of all places, did they use my property?
Remote, yes. Private, yes. But there are other isolated properties in the county. Larger ones. Easier ones. Places owned by people less likely to notice if something moved through the trees at night.