Chapter 10
JESSE
Sunlight cuts through the plaid curtains in narrow bands, painting stripes across the hardwood and the pale curve of Raven's shoulder where the sheet has slipped.
Her breathing is slow and even, her face turned into the pillow, coppery-red hair tangled across the white cotton.
One hand rests on my chest with her fingers splayed wide, keeping track of me even in sleep the same way I kept track of her.
I've been awake since before dawn, cataloging details I didn't get to appreciate in the dark.
Bruises are already forming on her hips where my hands gripped too hard.
Red marks stripe her throat and collarbone from my mouth, my teeth.
The evidence of last night is written across her skin in ways that satisfy a possessive instinct I'm not interested in examining too closely.
She's still here. That matters more than it should.
After everything she's learned—that I killed my own father, that I spent years running black ops for her uncle, that Carmichael is using us both as pawns in a game neither of us agreed to play—she could have pulled away.
Built new walls. Put enough distance between us that last night never happened.
Instead, she came to me wanting and certain.
Let me leave marks that say exactly who she belongs to now, whether she's ready to admit that part out loud or not.
This complicates the tactical picture. Keeping her alive is no longer about obligation or a promise made to a dead man, and I can't pretend otherwise.
The smart play would be to put distance between us, keep this professional, treat last night as an aberration driven by adrenaline and proximity.
But I stopped making smart plays where Raven Bishop is concerned the night I put her on Carmichael's plane and watched her disappear into the dark knowing I'd burn down every bridge I had left to find her again.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand. Knox, because nobody else calls this early, and my brother has the patience of a caffeinated badger when he wants answers.
Raven stirs against me, her hand curling tighter against my ribs.
Her breathing stays steady. Let her sleep.
She needs it after the week she's had, and whatever Knox wants can wait another minute while I memorize the way she looks right now, warm and unguarded and tucked against me like this is where she's always slept.
My phone buzzes again.
I slide out from under Raven's hand and the sheets, moving carefully enough that she doesn't wake. The early morning air raises goosebumps across my skin as I pull on jeans and grab my phone, stepping into the main living space. The bedroom door closes behind me with a soft click.
Knox's name flashes on the screen. I answer.
"Talk to me."
"Finally." Knox skips the pleasantries entirely. "I've been calling. You want to tell me why you're ignoring your phone?"
"I was asleep."
"Bullshit. You sleep with your phone on and you're up before dawn every day of your life. Try again."
I cross the kitchen and lean against the counter, rubbing a hand across the back of my neck. "What do you need, Knox?"
"Status update. Devil's Acre cameras picked up cartel surveillance shifting positions overnight. They're adjusting their coverage and tightening the net." A beat of silence. "Beckett ran fresh thermal sweeps at dawn. Clean so far, but they're learning our patterns."
"They're patient," I say. "And professional."
"Which means they're getting ready to move." Knox's tone drops the last trace of brotherly needling. "You need anything from us?"
"Stay visible at the ranch. Keep your routines normal. I'll handle things on this end."
"And Raven?"
"She stays with me."
Knox makes a sound that falls somewhere between a snort and a warning but doesn't push it. "Watch your six, Jesse. These aren't street-level enforcers."
The bedroom door opens while Knox is still talking.
Raven crosses the living room in jeans and a dark t-shirt, her coppery hair pulled back in a ponytail.
She doesn't look at me, doesn't pause, just moves straight for the pantry with the kind of quiet focus that tells me she's been awake longer than I realized.
I watch her push the shelf aside and drop through the hatch without hesitation.
A minute later she climbs back up with a rifle in her hands and a box of ammunition tucked under one arm, resetting the shelf behind her without being asked.
Our eyes meet across the kitchen island. Raven doesn't look away. She doesn't apologize or second-guess what happened between us last night. She just stands there with a rifle and resolve written across her face, and the wanting hits me again with the same force it had twelve hours ago.
The timing is wrong and the place is worse, and none of that changes a damn thing.
I end the call with Knox and pocket the phone. "Planning to start a war without me?"
"I couldn't turn my brain off." She shifts the ammo box against her hip. "My rifle skills aren't where they need to be, and staying still wasn't an option. I figured I'd work on that while I clear my head."
She needs to burn through the restless energy that's coiled up inside her. I understand that better than most people would. Doing tactical work instead of sitting idle has always been the only thing that helps.
I nod. Putting rounds downrange is as good a way as any to quiet a mind that won't stop running.
Raven heads for the door without another word, and I let her go. Some things a person has to process alone, and she's earned that space.
The cartel's tightening surveillance on Devil's Acre means they're building toward an operation. The question is whether they've identified the redhead from the Pritchard ranch as Raven Bishop, and whether they've connected her to me yet.
Through the window, I watch her set up targets along the tree line, using fallen branches to prop water bottles and pieces of cardboard at varying distances.
When she's satisfied with the arrangement, she steps back, drops into a shooting stance, and puts rounds center mass through the first target.
Her form is textbook. Feet shoulder-width apart, weight forward, the rifle tucked tight against her shoulder. But the fourth shot pulls left. So does the seventh. She's compensating for recoil anticipation, fighting her own body instead of working with it.
My phone rings before I can head outside to correct her. Carmichael's name on the screen stops me mid-step.
I answer immediately. "Talk to me."
"Javier Alvarez arrived in Fredericksburg yesterday." Carmichael doesn't waste a syllable. "My team spotted him at a warehouse meet with known cartel enforcers. Photos confirmed his identity this morning."
Alvarez. Here. Raven's supervisor at the ATF. If he's in Fredericksburg meeting with cartel enforcers, the implications collapse into a single, ugly conclusion that unravels everything we thought we understood about how Raven's cover got blown.
"You have proof he's dirty?"
"Surveillance photos from the warehouse meet are clear shots from multiple angles.
He's not being careful anymore." Carmichael lets that sit for a beat.
"The surveillance team also caught him meeting with Sheriff Harlan at a roadside diner later that afternoon.
They looked comfortable together. Familiar. "
Sheriff Harlan. The sheriff who ruled every rancher death in the county accidental. The man who's been asking around town about a redhead.
"Send me everything."
"Already encrypted and on its way." Keys click in the background. "Jesse, Alvarez being here changes the tactical picture entirely. He knows Raven's face, her operational patterns, the way she thinks. Morrison was the trigger man. Alvarez has been running her."
Not supervising her as an agent. Running her as an asset. The distinction lands like a blade between the ribs.
"Do you want her to know he's here?"
"That's your call to make." Carmichael's voice drops half a register. "Alvarez is coordinating the pipeline through Harlan and the local cartel operation. But Jesse, if he knows Raven is in Fredericksburg, he's moving to finish what Morrison started."
The line goes dead.
Through the window, Raven is still shooting, working through another magazine with the kind of focused repetition that tells me she's trying to outrun her own thoughts. She needs to know Alvarez is in Fredericksburg. She deserves to hear it from me before the situation forces my hand.
I pull up the encrypted file on my phone.
Carmichael's team doesn't waste bandwidth, and the photos download fast, loading one after another.
Alvarez at the warehouse, shoulder to shoulder with known cartel enforcers.
Alvarez at the diner across from a man in a Gillespie County sheriff's uniform, leaning in like they've had this conversation a hundred times before.
I pocket the phone and head outside.
Rifle reports echo across the clearing in measured intervals as I cross the grass toward her position.
Raven doesn't acknowledge my approach. She keeps firing, each shot precise and deliberate.
Water bottles burst apart. Cardboard shreds and flutters.
She works through the magazine, drops it, reloads, and starts again without breaking rhythm.
I wait until she's emptied another magazine before I speak.
"You're pulling left."
Raven glances at me, and the rawness in her expression has nothing to do with shooting.
"I know." She ejects the empty magazine and reaches for another. "I’m working on it."
The fresh mag slides home and she chambers a round, then pauses with the rifle angled toward the ground. "You didn't come out here to critique my form."
There's no gentle way to deliver intel that's going to detonate no matter how I frame it. But Raven has never needed gentle, and I'm not going to insult her by pretending otherwise.
"We need to talk. Your uncle sent me files."