Chapter 17 #2
The next rider is loading into the chute when Colt's hand settles on the back of my neck, his thumb moving slow circles against the skin below my hairline. The touch is absent, possessive, and makes it very difficult to concentrate on the corridor below the VIP section.
"Breathe, Kenna."
"I am breathing."
"You're breathing like you're about to run a forty-yard dash. Slow it down."
"Easy for you to say. You just rode a bull. I've been standing here white knuckling the wait."
His thumb presses harder. The knot loosens, just barely, and I hate how easily he can do that.
Then I see them. Four figures in dark jackets moving through the concourse. Efficient, unhurried, spreading to cover exits before converging on the VIP entrance. Two more from the opposite side.
Torres is at the front, badge visible, vest under her jacket. She flew in for this. The woman who built this case from an Albuquerque field office wasn't going to let anyone else make the arrest.
"Come on," Colt says, and his hand moves to the small of my back, steering me toward the stairs.
The pressure of his palm is firm and proprietary and sends heat radiating down my spine in a way that has no business happening during a federal arrest operation.
We reach the corridor outside the VIP entrance as Torres steps through the glass doors. The security guard has already moved aside.
We stop at the threshold. Close enough to hear everything.
Merrick sees Torres and doesn't stand. He sets his bourbon down and folds his hands in his lap.
The composure makes my skin crawl.
"Mr. Merrick."
Torres produces a folded document. "I have a warrant for your arrest."
The aide beside him reaches for it. Torres redirects the document to Merrick.
He reads it. Takes his time. Turns the page. His bourbon sits untouched beside him, the ice slowly surrendering to the amber, and the patience with which he reads his own arrest warrant is the most unsettling thing I've seen since I walked onto this circuit.
He sets the document on the table and aligns its edges with the table's edge. The gesture is precise. Controlled. The gesture of a man who arranges the world to his specifications even when the world is closing in around him.
"My lawyers will have me out by morning." He says it to Torres, but his eyes move to the doorway. They find me. They find Colt. They hold for a beat that lasts exactly long enough to deliver a message.
I know who you are. I know what you did. This isn't over.
Then the smile returns, smooth and warm, and he buttons his jacket and offers his wrists to the agent with the cuffs as if he's extending a handshake.
"Your lawyers are going to be busy." Torres doesn't raise her voice.
"I have photographic evidence documenting the drugging of livestock at multiple circuit events.
Sworn testimony from multiple circuit insiders corroborating the operation.
A financial analysis tracing prize money fraud through shell companies across four states. "
She lets each item land.
"I also have," she continues, "a text message from Mr. Thornton to Mr. Holloway requesting a meeting to cooperate, followed by Thornton's murder the same night at the meeting place in the text.
There were witnesses who can attest Mr. Holloway was also an intended victim and had nothing to do with Mr. Thornton's death. "
Torres takes a breath before finishing with, "Your shell companies are frozen. Your accounts have been seized. The warrant extends to your offices, your personal residence, and every Thornton Livestock facility in four states. I need you to stand Mr. Merrick."
The smile on Merrick's face thins. The calculation behind it sharpens, the gears of a man reassessing odds in real time. For the first time since I've been watching him, the confidence flickers.
Torres nods to the agents.
Merrick stands, straightens his jacket and doesn't resist as the federal agents cuff his wrists behind his back.
Beside me, Colt's body is so taut I can feel the vibration of it through the air between us.
His arm presses against mine, and I know what it's costing him to stand here and watch instead of walking into that VIP section himself.
The restraint is physical, muscular, the same discipline that keeps him on a bull when gravity says he should be in the dirt.
I press my arm back against his. Not much. Just enough to say I'm here.
Merrick is led away from the VIP section in front of his staff and several thousand people who believed in the circuit he corrupted.
He walks out with the same measured stride he uses at a podium.
No resistance. No scene. Just a man in a good suit being escorted through a concourse while the crowd roars for a bull rider on the arena floor.
He walks past me. Close enough that I catch his cologne again, the same expensive, clean scent from the Scottsdale hospitality suite, and the memory of him saying Grant's name in that room—‘Fine young man. Terrible loss.’—hits me at the base of the skull.
This man shook my hand. He looked me in the eye and said my brother's name like a eulogy, and the whole time he was calculating whether I needed to be handled the same way.
I expected triumph. Vindication. The righteous satisfaction of watching justice arrive on schedule.
What hits me instead is grief. Sharp and fresh and completely sideways, cutting through the adrenaline before I can brace for it.
Watching Merrick in handcuffs doesn't bring Grant back. Doesn't undo the death or the time I spent lying to a man I love about who I am.
Colt doesn't ask if I'm okay. He pulls me against him, one arm locked around my shoulders, his chin on the top of my head.
The gesture isn't gentle. It's possessive and absolute, the physical equivalent of a door slamming shut between me and everything that wants to tear me apart.