Page 98 of Savage Rancher
My hands are still flexed, ready for violence that didn't come. My heart rate hasn't changed—steady, controlled, lethal. "Mason," I say into the comms. "Status?"
"Vehicles moving out. Three cargo vans, two pickups. All heading south on the access road." His voice is calm, clinical. "Want me to take out the tires?"
I consider it for exactly two seconds. "Let them go."
"Copy."
I walk back toward the truck. Luke's standing beside it, one hand on Emma's shoulder. She's standing, breathing hard, clutching her camera like it's a lifeline.
Her eyes find mine in the darkness. Relief. Fear. Guilt.
I wrap my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her to me, grounding myself in the fact that she's here, she's safe, she'smine. "You okay?" I ask, my voice rough.
She nods. "I got it. I got everything." Her hands clutch my shirt. “It’s a human trafficking operation.”
Luke and I exchange a look. Neither one of us is surprised.
Mason jogs up to us, rifle slung over his shoulder. "They're gone. Scattered. We could track them, but?—"
"No." I shake my head. "We got what we came for."
"And evidence," Emma says, holding up her camera. "I photographed the whole operation."
Mason's expression doesn't change, but I see him thinking the same thing I am.
Luke is too. He looks like he feels sorry for her.
“What?” Emma asks, glancing between the three of us.
My fingers tighten on her neck. “You don’t take pictures of men like Turner and walk away clean.”
Her brow furrows. “I have proof that’ll land him in prison.”
“Prison won’t stop him, or the men he reports too.” I want to rage at the thought, but I temper my voice. It’s not her fault, and I’m not going to make her feel bad—not when she did what she thought she had to do. Still, she needs to understand. “Emma, you just put a target on your back. You just made yourself something he can’t ignore.”
102
EMMA
Jake and Luke drive me home. Mason rides Smoke back. They’re downstairs, going through the pictures on my camera. I came upstairs to shower.
I'm sitting on the edge of Jake's bed when he finally comes in, my hair still damp, wearing one of his T-shirts and nothing else. My hands are shaking. They haven't stopped shaking since we got back.
The door closes behind him with a quiet click.
He doesn't say anything at first. Just stands there, looking at me with unreadable deep-blue eyes. I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw is locked tight.
"I'm sorry," I say, my voice breaking on the words.
He moves then—crosses the room in three strides and drops to his knees in front of me, his hands gripping my thighs. "Don't."
"I should have told you." The words tumble out in a rush. "I should have told you I was going to check out the north ridge. I should have told you about my dad’s evidence folder, about what he documented, about—" My breath hitches as it bottlenecks in my throat. "I lied to you. I snuck out. I put your life in danger.Mason's. Luke's. All three of you could have been killed tonight because I?—"
"Emma." His voice is rough, commanding. "Stop."
Tears burning my eyes, I shake my head. "I can't keep secrets from you. Not anymore. Tonight proved that for so many reasons. If I keep things from you, I put all of you at risk. I need you to trust me, and I need to trust you, and that means?—"
"I know what it means." He stands, pulling me up with him, his hands framing my face. "And you're right. No more secrets. Not between us. So I need to tell you that we found you tonight because I’d installed a tracker on your phone."
