Chapter 20
The Rookie
~HAZEL~
“ARANCH?!”
The words leave my mouth at a volume that makes Oakley’s shoulders shake with suppressed laughter beside me, and I don’t even care, because I am sitting in the passenger seat of a department cruiser staring through the windshield at something that my brain is refusing to categorize correctly.
Acres.
That’s the first thing I register. Not the structures or the fencing or the surveillance equipment that I’m sure exists but can’t see—the space.
Rolling Montana terrain stretching out in every direction, the October grass carrying the golden-brown palette of a landscape that knows winter is coming and has dressed accordingly.
Paddocks line the eastern perimeter, their wooden fencing weathered to a silver-grey that suggests decades of exposure.
A stable complex sits to the north—massive, red-roofed, the kind of structure that was built to house animals in serious numbers and has been maintained with the kind of funding that volunteer operations don’t have.
Behind us, the heavy wooden gates are closing.
Not creaky, atmospheric, this-is-a-haunted-farmhouse closing.
Smooth. Motorized. The gates swinging shut with the controlled, hydraulic precision of a security installation that has been engineered to look rustic and function like a military checkpoint.
I catch the glint of something metallic along the upper rail—a sensor, maybe, or a camera housing—before the wood panels meet and the locking mechanism engages with a muted, industrial click.
Government property.
They live on government property that looks like a ranch.
Oakley is maneuvering the cruiser along a muddy access road that cuts through the property with the casual confidence of a man who has driven this terrain enough times that the ruts and the soft patches are memorized in his muscle memory.
The October rain has turned the soil into the thick, clay-heavy mud that Montana produces—the kind that grabs tires and tests suspension systems and makes city-bred vehicles weep.
The cruiser handles it without complaint, the all-wheel drive doing its job with the quiet competence of equipment that was selected for this specific purpose.
And beside me, Oakley has a smirk on his face.
Not the grin. Not the full-brightness, sunshine-in-human-form expression that he deploys during conversations and tactical briefings and apparently while flicking his partner’s forehead during medical emergencies.
This is the smirk—the subtler, more satisfied version, carrying the particular pride of a man who is showing someone something impressive and knows it’s impressive and is enjoying the moment of revelation with the restrained delight of a kid who built the best science fair project and is watching the judges approach.
“Surprising, right?” he says.
“Surprising is a town having a decent coffee shop,” I manage. “This is—what is this? You guys live on a ranch?”
He laughs.
The sound is bright in the cruiser’s cab—warm, unguarded, carrying the candied blood orange of his scent in a way that I’m starting to understand is characteristic.
Oakley’s scent responds to his emotions with less restraint than Roman’s or Alaric’s, the olfactory output tracking his mood in real time like a broadcast he either can’t or won’t control.
Right now the blood orange is sweet, effervescent, threaded with the caramelized sugar notes that emerge when he’s genuinely pleased.
“It’s the perfect cover,” he explains, one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing at the landscape with the enthusiasm of a tour guide who loves his material.
“Think about it. You need underground operations for sensitive police work—surveillance, safe houses, evidence storage, witness protection—but you can’t exactly build a compound in a town where everyone knows everyone and a new construction project would generate six months of gossip. ”
He nods toward the stable complex.
“So you disguise it. Horse grooming and manure scooping on the surface. Tactical infrastructure underneath. The neighbors see a ranch. The county records show agricultural land. The tax assessor files it under livestock operations. And nobody asks questions because ranches are boring and boring is invisible.”
Boring is invisible.
The same principle that governs small-town crime. The disappearances are quiet, so the town ignores them. The property transfers are clean, so the records don’t flag them. The silence is comfortable, so nobody breaks it.
These three men built their base on the same logic that the criminals use. The difference is what’s hiding beneath the surface.
“Plus,” Oakley adds, his voice softening with something that sounds less tactical and more personal, “it preserves the animals. These small towns—the farmers get older, they can’t manage the livestock anymore, and the ranches get sold or abandoned.
The horses end up at auction or worse. This way, the property stays operational, the animals get cared for, and the department gets a secure facility that generates zero suspicion. ”
He glances at me.
“Roman pretends he doesn’t like the horses, but I’ve caught him feeding sugar cubes to a mare named Dolly at five in the morning when he thinks no one’s watching.”
Sugar cubes.
Roman Kade. Commander. Norse-rune-tattooed. Put-my-fist-through-a-wall-for-you Alpha. Feeding sugar cubes to a horse named Dolly at five in the morning.
Store that image. File it. Access it the next time he calls you a bitch.
The cruiser veers onto a smaller road—narrower, the mud giving way to compacted gravel that crunches beneath the tires with a satisfying, material sound.
Trees line both sides, the aspens showing the last of their October gold, the evergreens standing dark and permanent behind them.
The canopy creates a tunnel effect—dappled light, the air cooling by a degree, the scent shifting from open grassland to the particular, resinous perfume of pine needles and damp earth.
And then the trees part.
And I see it.
The cabin.
Except cabin is the wrong word. Cabin suggests something modest, functional, the kind of structure that a man builds when he needs four walls and a roof and doesn’t care what they look like. This is—
This is a house.
Massive. Two stories of dark timber and stone, the architecture carrying the specific, ambitious aesthetic of a structure designed by someone who understood that a home can be both a fortress and a place where people live.
A wide, wraparound porch anchors the ground floor, the railings made from the same weathered wood as the paddock fencing, the posts thick enough to suggest structural intent beyond decoration.
The upper level features dormer windows that catch the morning light, the glass reflecting the Montana sky with a clarity that makes the building look like it’s holding the landscape inside it.
A stone chimney rises from the western end, and even from the cruiser I can see the faint haze of residual smoke—someone lit a fire this morning. Left it burning low while they went to the hospital to retrieve their Omega.
Their Omega.
You keep calling yourself that.
Because you are one. Legally. Officially. On government record.
And now you’re looking at the house where that legal, official, government-recorded fact is going to become your daily reality for the next two weeks. Minimum.
Oakley parks behind the house, pulling the cruiser into a large barn structure that has been converted into a garage with the seamless, function-first engineering of a military motor pool.
The space is clean, organized, the concrete floor marked with parking designations that someone took the time to paint.
And the vehicles.
I count six. The department cruisers are expected—standard issue, the paint jobs carrying the same county markings as the one we arrived in.
But beside them, arranged with the pride of ownership that car enthusiasts unconsciously display in the spacing between vehicles: a matte-black Dodge Camaro that has no business existing in a town with a population under four thousand.
A silver Mercedes-Benz C-Class that I recognize as a model I used to see in the city parking garages of the financial district.
A midnight-blue pickup truck that looks vintage—seventies, maybe, the chrome trim polished to a mirror finish, the kind of vehicle that someone has invested time and affection into maintaining.
And two other trucks. Standard. Practical. The reliable, mud-capable vehicles that actually make sense for a Montana property.
“We park in here,” Oakley explains, cutting the engine, “just in case drones are flying above. Aerial surveillance is one of the harder variables to control, so we minimize the visible footprint. Anyone doing a pass sees a farmhouse and a barn. The vehicles stay hidden.”
He turns to me.
The smirk settles into something warmer.
“But if anyone criminal tries to come on these lands, it’s instant trespassing and lockup. So.” He tilts his head, the auburn curls shifting with the motion, the hazel of his eyes catching the barn’s overhead light. “Our girl is safe.”
I give him a side-eye.
The specific, one-eyebrow-lowered, other-eyebrow-raised expression that I reserve for statements that require immediate interrogation.
“Our girl?”
He doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t backpedal. Doesn’t offer the sheepish correction that most people produce when they’ve been caught making a possessive claim and the person they’re claiming is staring at them with the evaluative intensity of a woman who has opinions about being claimed.
Instead, he smirks.
“You are our Omega now,” he says, the words carrying zero hesitation and maximum conviction. “So yes. Our girl.”
He punctuates it with a wink.
The audacity of this man.