Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Declan
My knuckles burned as I gripped the diamonds. Some bastard had sabotaged my mine.
No. It was more than that. They’d crushed my dream and nearly killed my men, who had worked themselves raw down here. They’d ruined livelihoods.
Those men had been my responsibility.
I stared at the gems, calculating their worth.
The biggest one alone would fetch over seventy grand.
Enough for a month's cattle feed. That had been my plan, to use the diamonds to keep Koolaroo afloat, protect the breeding stock, and buy time until the export business picked up again and the herd became sustainable.
A truth dawned on me like a hit to the gut. “I know why the lift cable was cut.”
Bella frowned at me. “You do?”
“The asshole who triggered that roof collapse didn't want me coming back down here and finding evidence.” I nodded toward the tampered roof structure. “Or these.” I pointed at the diamonds.
I dragged in a breath that scraped my lungs raw, forcing myself to keep my cool. Losing my shit down here wouldn't fix a damn thing. Anger could wait. Survival couldn't.
And I was going to survive. We both were.
After that, I'd deal with the bastard who’d done this.
“What do we do now?” Bella's voice was as soft as a lullaby, cutting through the noise in my head.
“We get the hell out of here.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Good, because I'm officially over this underground tour.”
A rough chuckle escaped me as I looked at her; really looked at her. She was covered in dust and blood. Hands bandaged. Eyes pleading but still stubborn as hell.
How could she still be so beautiful after everything we'd been through?
“Come on, help me find the emergency handset.” I turned toward the dead end. “It should be in this section of the tunnel. That was protocol.”
“Okay. What does it look like?” She matched my stride across the rock-strewn ground.
“Look for a yellow plastic case about the size of a shoebox.”
We split up. I checked behind bracing beams and under fallen mesh while Bella worked her way along the sorting table, nudging aside loose rocks with careful movements that told me exactly how much pain she was hiding.
I crouched beside a bent support post. A yellow plastic box lay on its side, half-buried in dust. Just visible beneath the grime was a single word stamped into the casing: COMMS.
My heart kicked hard. “Found it.” I dropped to one knee and wrenched it free.
“That was quick.” Bella rushed to my side. “Is it okay?”
“The case is intact. That's a good sign.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Finally. Something goes right for us.”
“Don't celebrate just yet.”
I carried the case to the table and flipped the latches. The hinges screamed in protest as I pried the lid open. Inside, the handset sat in its cradle with a thick charging cable wrapped around it, and a backup battery unit underneath.
“Yes.” Relief washed through me as I lifted the handset and thumbed the power switch.
Nothing.
Bella leaned into my side. “Is that bad?”
“Battery's flat. I figured it would be.” I exhaled. “It takes hours to get enough charge to transmit properly, but—”
“What's another few hours?” Her mouth tilted into a weary grin.
I shrugged. “True. And we're still breathing, right?” It felt like a lifetime ago that just breathing had become our only measure of success.
Silence settled between us, thick and strangely intimate. Not awkward. Not rushed. Just quiet, in a way that made everything else fade away.
Bella met my gaze and didn't look away.
The steadiness of her gaze hit me hard. Not like the other times we’d been this close. Not like adrenaline, panic, or instinct pulling us together. This was deliberate. She was choosing me over exhaustion and fear and everything else we had going on.
Her tongue brushed her lips, slow and damn sexy.
My pulse kicked, heat sliding low through my body, sharp and unfamiliar after so long without wanting a woman like this. It had been years since I'd let myself even think about touching a woman, really touching her, without anger or distraction getting in the way.
I didn't move.
Neither did she.
She tilted her head, parted her lips, and I couldn't hold back a moment more.
I closed the distance between us and kissed her, slowly at first, yet deliberately. I needed to know this was real. Needed to feel her choosing this. Choosing me.
I cupped her jaw, my thumb brushing over her cheek, and the soft sound she made against my mouth went straight to my groin.
That was all it took.
Our kiss deepened, and heat flared through me, burning away months of restraint. Hell, years of it. She kissed me back, leaning into me as her hands slid into my shirt, gripping the fabric like she was anchoring herself to me.
Christ. She felt good.
Her mouth was warm and her tongue demanding, and when her body pressed closer, everything else fell away. The mine. The danger. The world. There was only her. The taste of her. The way she fit against me like she'd always belonged there.
That scared the hell out of me. I'd spent my life avoiding relationships, never letting anyone close enough to matter, but Bella had just shattered years of careful control with a single kiss.
And God help me, I wanted this kiss to become so much more.
I forced myself to break the kiss before I forgot where we were, before I forgot why we needed to stay sharp. I rested my forehead against hers, breath ragged, my hand still cradling her face like letting go wasn't an option.
“What are we doing, Bella?” My voice was as rough as the ground beneath us.
Her fingers tightened in my shirt, not pulling me closer, nor letting me go. She tilted her head and her gaze locked on mine. Steady. Certain. “I don't know,” she said softly. “But I don't want to stop.”
That was it.
I kissed her again, harder this time. Not frantic or desperate. Just certain. I slid my fingers into her thick hair, drawing her closer, kissing her, tasting her, touching her like I was sealing everything unspoken between us. A promise. A choice.
She met me with the same conviction, fingers digging into my back like she wasn't letting me go, kissing me like I was the air she'd been missing.
The world narrowed to the warmth of her mouth, the press of her body against mine, and the way she fit so perfectly that it felt dangerous to stop.
When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathing hard, neither of us willing to put space between us yet. Her eyes were dark and bright at once, blazing with an emotion that hit me like a punch.
Desire.
No. More than desire.
Want. Unmistakable, undeniable want. For me.
Everything between us had changed. And it was both deep and irreversible. Not just attraction. Not just chemistry. This was a line we wanted to cross.
There was no going back now.
And for the first time in… in ever, I had someone to fight for.
Damn, it felt good.
Bella pressed her bandaged hand to my chest and looked at me like she was looking into my soul. “What do we do now?”
“We get out of here.” My focus snapped back into place. “We take this to the lift area and hook it up to one of those generators still feeding the power.”
I slid the handset back into its case, then scooped the uncut diamonds into the cloth bag and tucked it in beside the radio. I snapped the latches shut. “With a bit of luck, we'll be out of here in an hour or so.”
I looked at her, expecting relief. Maybe even a smile.
Instead, her eyes seemed to dim.
Shock maybe. Or exhaustion. Or maybe she was questioning what had just happened between us.
I bloody hoped not. I was too far gone to pretend this hadn't changed everything.
“Stick close,” I said. “Step where I step.”
She smoothed her bandaged hands down her filthy dress and lifted her chin. “Will do.”
I led the way beneath reinforced beams, toward the jagged section where the collapse had bitten into the ceiling.
Turning sideways, I squeezed into the gap, and rocks crunched under my boots as I picked my way through it.
Somewhere behind us, stone shifted and dust drifted down in thin curtains, coating my shoulders and the back of my neck.
“What's happening?” Fear threaded Bella's voice.
“It's just the mine reminding us where we are,” I said.
She let out a breath. “Like we'd forget.”
A rough laugh scraped out of me. “Yeah.” Forgetting wasn't an option. Not for me. This place had been branded into my bones as a failure. Years of planning. Months of work. Men who’d trusted me. And then nothing.
But it wasn't nothing.
The diamonds were proof. Proof I hadn't been wrong. Proof that the mine had been profitable. Someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure I didn't succeed.
We cleared the choke point, and I turned back, offering Bella my hand. She took it, and trying not to hurt her burns, I steadied her as she stepped down onto firmer ground.
The lights flickered. Once. Twice.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Bella's wide-eyed gaze flew to me. “What's going on?”
“Generators might be faltering.”
Her breath hitched. “Oh God. We have to get out of here.”
“Yep.” I didn't sugarcoat it. “You okay to run?”
“Hell yes.” She didn't panic, and that steadiness in her was unreal. Everything about her was.
“Let's go, but watch your step.”
We took off, Bella hobbling at my side, her shoulder brushing my arm as we ran over smooth compacted dirt, her sneaker and sock thudding unevenly against the ground. The tunnel rushed past in a blur of stone and shadows.
“What happens if the generator dies?”
I groaned. “I won't be able to charge that phone.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
She picked up her pace, and I matched her stride for stride. Neither of us spoke. There wasn't breath for words.
The mine groaned again, deeper this time like a warning.
I shoved that bullshit aside. Fear didn't get a vote. Getting her out did.
It seemed like forever before we reached the lift chamber. As we rushed past the twisted metal frame, the severed cable hit me harder than before.
There was another reason why that lift was sabotaged.
It wasn't just to stop me from coming back down here.
It was a message.
I'd rather risk men dying than let you prove me wrong!
My gut twisted.
The collapse. The sabotaged supports. The diamonds hidden as if they’d never existed. Only one person knew this mine well enough to do all of that. And only one person stood to lose if I succeeded.
My own fucking father—Frank Branson.
That bastard couldn't handle me making my own decisions. He didn't want me to prove him wrong.
He didn't want a son. He wanted someone to own. Someone to work for him without asking questions.
Bella's hand clamped around my wrist. “Hey, you okay?”
I sucked in a breath like I'd been punched in the chest, snapping back into focus. “Yep.” The word came out hard. Controlled. I was far from okay. I was pissed off.
I need to get us the hell out of here. “This way.”
I crossed the chamber fast, boots echoing off stone as I reached the wall-mounted charging unit bolted beside the maintenance bench. The indicator light glowed faint red. Good. We just needed enough to power the leaky feeder for one call.
I rerouted the cable to the auxiliary solar feed that still limped along this section, snapped open the emergency comms case, and shoved the plug home. The red light blinked.
While I worked, Bella dragged over two battered chairs and the other two bottles of water and sat, watching me like she was trying to read my mind. I hoped not. I had so much anger racing through my brain, it was a wonder I could think.
“Is it working?” she asked.
“All good so far.” The charging indicator light blinked red and way too slowly for my liking.
Her shoulders eased. “Okay. What do we do now?”
“Now, we wait.” I dropped into the chair beside her, and bone-deep exhaustion hit home.
She leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and rested my head back against the wall.
Time passed agonizingly slowly.
“Declan?” She rolled her lip between her teeth.
“Yeah.”
She pulled out from beneath my arm, and the dread in her eyes made my chest tighten. “Do you think your dad is involved in this sabotage?”
I jerked back. I hadn't expected that. “Yeah. I think Frank's a damn liar and a cheating bastard. Plus, he sabotages other people's dreams to save his own skin.”
“Oh.” She blinked as though a terrible truth had just clicked into place. “Do you think that's why he vanished?”
I met her gaze head-on. “I think he's either hiding because someone's coming for him, or he got himself mixed up in some bullshit that got him killed.”
Her expression darkened like that answer wasn't enough.
“Why are you asking about Frank?”
She let out a long breath and shifted beside me, maybe putting distance between us, maybe needing to face me properly. I couldn't tell. “There's something I haven't told you.” She twisted her bandaged hands in her lap like she was trying to hold back a new horror.
“Okay, why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like what you say?”
Her expression darkened. “Before Mom died, she made me swear to stay away from the Bransons. I promised her I would never set foot on Koolaroo Ranch.”
“Yet here you are.” My jaw tightened as dread crawled up my spine.
She lifted her chin and her gaze locked on mine. “I couldn't keep that promise. I came here to make Frank pay for what he did to my family.”
My pulse jumped. “What do you mean—make him pay?”
Her red hair clung to her face in damp tangles. Her dress was torn, streaked with blood and grime. Tear tracks cut pale lines through the dirt on her cheeks, and her blue eyes burned with a grief and fury that mirrored my own. She looked frail and shattered.
Yet her jaw was set, and cold fury flared across her face. “I came here to poison Frank.”
She swallowed once, hard. “I want him dead.”
The words slammed into me.
I should've pulled back. Should've told her she'd lost her damn mind. Should've said murder would ruin her, that she was better than this.
But I didn't.
The silence stretched between us, thick and charged.
This woman had walked onto my land carrying grief sharp enough to kill, defying her dead mother’s final plea. And somehow, fate had dropped us into the same hole in the ground and dared us both to survive it.
And I was falling for her so damn hard it felt like another kind of cave-in.
I believed her.
God help me, I believed she’d come here to kill my father and call it justice.
That should’ve terrified me.
It didn’t.
What made my blood turn to ice was the realization that if Frank Branson walked into this mine right now, wearing that fucking condescending twist of a smile he’d used every time he’d broken me, I wouldn’t stop her.
I’d kill him myself.