Chapter Six
Chapter Five
Marius
I do not go back to Briar Hollow the next day. That is not restraint. It is strategy.
There were times in my life when the distinction mattered.
When the line between appetite and discipline was thin enough to tempt me into testing it, and I learned, sometimes painfully, that wanting a thing and taking it were not the same act.
Men with weak instincts confuse impulse for power.
Men with real power know when not to move.
So I stay away, physically at least.
By eight that morning, I am seated in the study of the house I use outside the city, a quiet, heavily guarded place set back from the road behind iron gates and old trees.
The room is lined with dark shelving and tall windows, the kind of space people find intimidating because it looks cultivated and calm rather than obviously expensive.
A fire burns low in the hearth, though the day has already turned milder, and on the desk in front of me sits a file that has doubled in thickness since midnight.
Leona Vale. The name looks cleaner on paper than it has any right to.
I open the file again, though I already know most of what it contains.
Twenty-eight. Owner and operator of Briar Hollow Exotics.
Volunteer work with the local wildlife rescue.
No spouse. No known long-term partner. No obvious romantic entanglements in recent years.
Financial strain consistent with land ownership, feed, veterinary contracts, and the constant uphill effort of keeping a sanctuary like hers operational, but nothing desperate.
No major legal issues. No notable arrests.
A few permit disputes, all resolved. One complaint filed three years ago against a neighboring property owner who tried to trespass and get a better look at one of her animals.
I pause there. The complaint itself is dry. Procedural. She did not embellish. Did not dramatize. She stated what happened, what boundary was crossed, and what outcome she expected. Interesting.
I turn to the supplemental pages Willem obtained overnight.
Volunteer schedules. Feed suppliers. Regional licensing records.
An archived interview from a local paper after Briar Hollow took in a neglected wolf hybrid and three illegally kept exotic birds.
A grainy photograph accompanies it, showing her squinting into sunlight, one arm wrapped around a crate while a macaw clings to her shoulder like some feral flash of color against an otherwise practical world.
She looks annoyed to be photographed. I almost respect that more than anything else in the article.
A soft knock sounds at the study door.
“Come in.”
Willem enters first, as he always does. Quiet. Composed. Carrying a tablet and a folder he likely does not need because most of what matters is already in his head.
“The perimeter was clean,” he says. “No sign of the missing courier on her land. No evidence she has been in contact with anyone tied to the route.”
I lean back in my chair. “And the watcher?”
“Still in place. Far enough not to be seen unless she starts looking for him specifically.”
“She already started.”
That earns the slightest shift in Willem’s expression. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
Leona has the instincts for it. Not training, perhaps, but instinct.
The kind that likely makes her life harder, not easier.
People praise intuition when it is convenient and punish it when it notices too much.
Watchful women are often called difficult simply because they see what others would rather keep hidden.
Willem sets the folder on the desk. “She left the property around one this afternoon.”
My gaze lifts. “For where?”
“The wildlife rescue in town. She assisted with a raccoon extraction.”
For one beat, silence holds. Then I look down at the file again and feel something dangerously close to amusement press at the edges of my composure.
“A raccoon,” I repeat.
Willem, to his credit, keeps his face perfectly straight. “Covered in blue paint, apparently.”
I exhale once through my nose. It would be easier if she were ordinary.
Easier if her life narrowed into one or two obvious traits I could categorize and set aside.
But Leona Vale keeps arranging herself in my mind with increasing precision.
The blonde woman in the rain with mud on her boots and anger in her eyes.
Now crouched over a furious blue raccoon somewhere in town, talking it down in that low, steady voice.
There are worse thoughts to have. There are safer ones too.
“What about the route?” I ask.
Willem’s expression flattens. “We confirmed the break happened before the county line. The courier deviated west for nineteen minutes. Too long to be accidental. Then the signal cut.”
I tap once against the desk. Nineteen minutes. Long enough to meet someone. Long enough to transfer something. Long enough to get himself killed.
“Who knew that stretch of land was isolated?” I ask.
“Anyone with access to the maps.”
“Not good enough.”
“No.”
I stand and cross to the window. Outside, the grounds spread in controlled quiet.
Trimmed hedges. Stone walkways darkened by last night’s rain.
Two men moving along the outer drive in practiced silence.
Everything is orderly. Guarded. Predictable in the way I require my immediate world to be.
That predictability did not come cheaply.
It was built over years with care, leverage, and the occasional necessary brutality.
And still, all morning my thoughts have kept returning elsewhere. Weathered fencing. Wet pasture grass. Wolves in back enclosures. A porch light in the dark.
The look on Leona’s face when I told her one of my men would remain nearby.
Anger, yes. But beneath it, something harder to categorize.
Not helplessness. Not outrage for show. Something closer to refusal so deep it had become part of her structure.
I respect that. I also know how dangerous it can be.
“Do you want her moved?” Willem asks.
The question comes evenly, without judgment. In another context, moving a liability to a secure location until a problem is resolved would be efficient. And completely unacceptable, I realize before the thought is fully formed.
“No.”
Willem waits.
“Not unless the situation changes.”
“You think she’ll cooperate?”
“I think she’ll do the opposite of whatever sounds most reasonable if she believes it is being forced on her.”
“That bad?”
“That honest.”
I return to the desk and glance again at the article. A quote sits halfway down the page, attributed to her when asked why she left a more conventional veterinary path to build Briar Hollow.
Because wild things do badly in cages they did not choose.
I read it once. Then again. A less disciplined man might mistake the shift in his body for desire alone. But desire is only part of it. Recognition is the other. She said something true there, something spare and brutal enough that it might as well have been carved into bone.
I close the article. “Have Dawson checked.”
Willem blinks once. “The sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“Discreetly?”
“Obviously.”
If she has spoken to local law enforcement, I want to know.
Not because I am concerned about a small-town sheriff, but because whether she reports me matters.
It tells me how she handles fear when there is no good option available.
Whether she reaches outward for structure or keeps things to herself until they become unbearable. I already suspect the answer.
A second knock sounds at the door, followed by Daan stepping inside without waiting for permission.
“We found the courier’s phone,” he says. “Burned. Dumped off Route 14.”
My attention sharpens instantly. “And?”
“Nothing usable on the device. Whoever handled it knew what they were doing.” He pauses. “But there was blood in the ditch nearby.”
I hold still. “Test it.”
“Already in motion.”
That is something. Not enough. Never enough.
Daan’s gaze flicks toward the file on the desk before returning to me. “You’re spending a lot of time on the farm girl.”
The room goes quiet. I look at him long enough that another man might try to fill the silence and make it worse.
“Would you like to explain what you think that means?” I ask.
He shrugs once. “It means you do not usually read local newspaper archives for fun.”
I almost smile. Almost.
“No,” I say. “I read them because men get lazy when they assume local lives are too small to matter.”
He inclines his head. “Understood.”
“The route crossed her land,” I continue. “That makes her relevant.”
He nods once and leaves. Still, a trace of irritation lingers. Not because he is entirely wrong. Because he noticed at all.
By late afternoon, the house quiets enough for me to retreat upstairs to the library. Unlike the study, this room is for no one else. Floor-to-ceiling shelves. Old leather chairs. Long windows overlooking the grounds. Fewer weapons. More secrets.
I select a novel and read perhaps four pages before realizing I have absorbed none of them.
My mind drifts back to Briar Hollow. I picture her in daylight this time, hair coming loose from its braid, sleeves pushed up, hands scratched from work, standing in the middle of a place she built herself and looking at intruders like she would rather fight than perform gratitude.
My grip tightens slightly on the spine of the book. I set it down.