Chapter 13
The text was still burning in Trudy's mind when she kissed him.
Borrowed time. Still mine to bury.
She'd spent three hours in this room, listening to distant gunfire, praying to a God she wasn't sure she believed in anymore, clutching a shotgun she'd barely learned to use.
Three hours of imagining Kilgore dead in some holler, his blood soaking into the same ground Sizemore's men were poisoning.
Three hours of understanding, with perfect clarity, that she'd found something worth keeping and might lose it before she got to keep it.
Now he was here. Alive. Blood on his hands that wasn't his, smoke in his clothes, the residue of violence clinging to him like a second skin.
And she was done pretending she didn't understand.
"Trudy—" he started.
She silenced him with her mouth.
The kiss was desperate, hungry, nothing like the slow burn of their first time.
She grabbed fistfuls of his cut and pulled him toward the bed, toward the only thing that made sense when the world was falling apart around them.
He resisted for half a second—some instinct toward gentleness, toward checking on her first—and then his control snapped.
He lifted her. Carried her to the bed. Came down over her with a groan that sounded like surrender.
"I thought—" She couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't admit out loud how terrified she'd been. "When I heard the guns, I thought—"
"I know." His mouth was on her throat, her collarbone, pushing aside her shirt to find bare skin. "I know, baby. I'm here. I'm right here."
She needed to touch him. Needed to prove he was real, solid, alive under her hands. Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, then traced the planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle, the scars she was still learning the stories behind.
He was alive. He'd come back to her.
That was worth everything.
"Off," she demanded, tugging at his belt. "I need—Kilgore, I need—"
"I've got you."
He stripped them both with rough efficiency, no patience for buttons or clasps, just the desperate need to be skin against skin. When he finally settled between her thighs, Trudy wrapped herself around him and held on like he was the only solid thing in a world gone liquid.
"Look at me." His voice was rough, commanding. "Eyes on me."
She obeyed. Found his gaze in the dim light, saw the same desperation reflected back at her—the fear of loss, the relief of survival, the need to claim something real while death still echoed in the distance.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "You hear me? I'm not leaving you."
"Promise me."
"I promise." He thrust inside her, and they both gasped. "I promise, Trudy. You're mine, and I protect what's mine."
The first time was fast, urgent—two people burning off fear and adrenaline, trying to prove to each other that they were still alive. Trudy came apart under him with a cry she barely recognized, and he followed moments later, his face buried in her neck, her name on his lips like a prayer.
They lay tangled together, breathing hard, heartbeats slowly finding their normal rhythm.
Then he started again.
"Wade—"
"Not done with you yet."
The second time was different. Slower. The desperation faded, replaced by something deeper—attention, intention, the careful mapping of her body like he was committing every inch to memory. He learned what made her gasp, what made her moan, what made her arch into him and beg for more.
"Beautiful," he murmured against her skin. "So goddamn beautiful. Every time I look at you, I can't believe you're real."
"I'm real." She pulled his mouth back to hers. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere either."
They moved together like they'd been doing this for years instead of days.
Like their bodies already knew each other's rhythms, already spoke a language they were still learning with words.
When she shattered the second time, it was gentler—a wave instead of a crash—and she cried out his name, his real name, the one he'd given her like a gift.
Afterward, they lay in the wreckage of the sheets, her head on his chest, his hand tracing lazy patterns on her back.
The compound was quiet now—the battle over, the wounded being tended, the dead being counted.
But in this room, there was only the two of them and the fragile peace they'd carved out of chaos.
"Tell me what happened," she said quietly. "Really happened. Not the version you think I can handle."
His hand stilled on her back.
"Trudy—"
"I held a shotgun for three hours, ready to kill anyone who came through that door." She lifted her head, met his eyes. "I think I've earned the real version."
Something shifted in his expression. Respect, maybe. Or recognition that she wasn't the scared woman who'd called him for help anymore—that somewhere in the past weeks, she'd become something harder.
"Sizemore sent contractors," he said. "Professional muscle, not his usual crew. Twenty men, tactical gear, explosives. They were there to burn the distillery and send a message."
"What message?"
"That the club can't protect what's ours." His jaw tightened. "That we can't protect you."
Trudy's stomach clenched. "But you stopped them."
"We stopped them. Lost the element of surprise, used the terrain, picked them apart before they could regroup.
" His hand resumed its movement on her back, but there was tension in it now.
"They weren't expecting us to know they were coming.
Weren't expecting men who've been running these hollers since before they were born. "
"And Slone?"
"Dead." No hesitation, no regret. "Found him at the back of the assault, mapping our operation with his GPS. Same GPS he's been using to map dump sites for ten years."
Trudy pushed up on her elbow. "You got it? The GPS?"
"Hacksaw has it now. Ridge is pulling the data.
" Kilgore's eyes were dark, haunted. "Trudy, there are hundreds of sites.
Hundreds. Every holler in three counties, every abandoned mine, every creek that feeds into someone's well.
Ten years of poison, all documented. Dates, locations, volumes. Slone kept records of everything."
The scope of it hit her like a physical blow.
Hundreds of sites. Thousands of families drinking water they didn't know was poisoned. Kids getting sick from chemicals they'd never heard of, parents watching their children suffer without understanding why.
Her grandmother's holler. Her cousins' wells. The communities her father had grown up in, had given his lungs to, had loved despite everything they'd taken from him.
All of it poisoned. All of it documented by a man who'd treated the destruction like a logistics problem.
"Oh God," she whispered. "Oh God, Kilgore—"
"I know." He pulled her against him, held her tight while the horror washed over her. "I know."
"All those people. All those kids—"
"I know."
Tears burned her eyes. She'd known it was bad—had suspected, had feared—but the reality was worse than anything she'd imagined. Ten years. Hundreds of sites. An entire region poisoned by men who saw Appalachian poverty as permission to commit slow-motion murder.
"We have to stop him." The words came out fierce, choked with rage and grief. "Sizemore. We have to stop him before he can do any more damage."
"We will."
"Promise me."
Kilgore's arms tightened around her. His mouth pressed against her hair, her forehead, the tears she couldn't stop from falling.
"I promise," he said. "He's already lost two of his key people. Combs was his muscle. Slone was his eyes. Without them, his operation is crippled. He's desperate, which makes him dangerous—but it also makes him sloppy."
"The text he sent—"
"Was him trying to scare us. Trying to prove he's still in control." Kilgore's voice hardened. "He's not. And when we finish with him, he's going to understand exactly how much control he's lost."
Trudy lay in his arms, processing the magnitude of what they'd discovered. Hundreds of sites. Ten years of poison. Damage that might take generations to undo, if it could be undone at all.
But Slone was dead. The GPS was in Thunder Ridge's hands. And for the first time since this started, they had a complete map of the destruction—which meant they had a map of what still needed protecting.
"We can't undo it," she said quietly. "All those sites, all that damage—we can't fix what's already done."
"No." Kilgore's hand found hers, threaded their fingers together.
"But we can stop it from getting worse. We can make sure Sizemore never poisons another holler.
And we can make sure the people who paid him—Harmon Industrial, whoever else is involved—know that this region isn't their dumping ground anymore. "
Trudy turned his words over in her mind. It wasn't justice—not really. The families already sick wouldn't get better. The wells already poisoned wouldn't run clean. The damage was done, permanent, carved into the land and the people like scars that would never fully heal.
But stopping it from getting worse?
That might be enough.
It had to be enough.
"I want to help," she said. "When you go after Sizemore. I want to be part of it."
Kilgore's body tensed. "Trudy—"
"Don't." She pushed up to look at him, fierce despite the tears still drying on her cheeks. "Don't tell me it's too dangerous, that I should stay behind where it's safe. This started because I wouldn't stay blind and deaf. I'm not starting now."
"It's not about what I think you can handle—"
"Then what is it about?"
He was quiet for a long moment. His thumb traced circles on her hip, his eyes searching her face like he was looking for something.
"It's about the fact that if something happened to you, I wouldn't survive it." The words came out rough, scraped raw. "I've buried everyone I love, Trudy. Everyone. And now there's you, and the thought of adding you to that list—"
She kissed him. Soft, gentle, trying to pour reassurance into the touch.
"Then we make sure nothing happens to me," she said against his lips. "We make a plan, we stick together, and we end this. Together."
"Together," he repeated, like he was testing the word. Like it was a concept he'd forgotten how to believe in.
"Yeah." She settled back against his chest, her hand over his heart. "Together."
The night deepened around them. Outside, the compound slowly returned to normal—brothers standing down, wounds being tended, the rhythm of life reasserting itself after violence.
But in this room, Trudy lay awake, listening to Kilgore's heartbeat, thinking about maps of poison and promises of justice.
Hundreds of sites. Ten years of damage.
But also: two men down, one to go, and a main antagonist who was running out of resources.
Stopping the damage might be enough.
It had to be.
She held Kilgore tighter and let herself believe it.