Page 7 of Raven's Mark
I haven't asked questions yet, but I will. I stopped taking orders from her uncle a long time ago. That said, I've kept tabs on Raven through him over the years, checking in every few months, making sure she was alive, making sure she made it through the Academy and through her first year at the ATF and through every dangerous assignment Carmichael mentioned during our occasional calls.
It was the least I could do for Martin Bishop.
Raven laughs at something Maria says, and the sound cuts clean through the bar noise and lands somewhere in the center of my chest. In the short time I knew her, I never once heard her laugh. There was no room for laughter back then, only terror and grief and white-hot rage. Hearing it now, unexpected and genuine, does something to me that I wasn't prepared for.
I'm the one who dragged her away from everything she loved while her uncle stayed behind to die. I put her on that plane while she screamed and fought and begged me to let her go back. I can still feel her nails tearing at my forearm, can still hear Martin's shotgun cracking through the night air as we drove away from the ranch.
My hands tighten around the beer bottle, the glass cold against my palms. I need that sensation, something solid and physical to anchor me, to keep me from getting up and walking across this room and doing something monumentally stupid like telling her who I am.
Raven asks Maria another question, leaning forward with an easy, casual interest that looks natural enough to fool anyone who isn't watching as closely as I am. Maria's expression shifts and she starts gesturing, talking about the area. She's probably answering questions about ranching, about local families, the kind of low-stakes conversation that helps a person map unfamiliar territory.
Then Maria says something that makes Raven go completely still.
It only lasts a second, barely noticeable to anyone who isn't looking for it, but I catch it. Maria must have mentioned my family, or me specifically, or Devil's Acre. Maybe she brought up Pritchard or something else that's been happening around here.
She recovers fast, takes a sip of her beer, and keeps the conversation moving like nothing happened. But whatever Maria said landed somewhere personal, somewhere that has nothing to do with why she's here.
Maria says something else, and her expression tightens in a way I recognize. It's a warning. I've seen that exact look before, the same one she gave me when I came back to Fredericksburg a couple of years ago and told her I was reopening Devil's Acre. It's the look that says be careful, that some things in this town are better left buried, and that the ghosts around here don't stay quiet when you start digging them up.
Raven may think she's just gathering background, getting a feel for what the last decade has done to this place, but even innocent questions can turn dangerous in a town with this many secrets.
I see the moment it happens. Her body registers my attention before her conscious mind does. There's a subtle shift in her posture, a tightening across her shoulders that has nothing to do with the conversation. It's operative instinct, pure and trained.
She doesn't turn around. Instead, she takes a slow, deliberate sip of her beer and lets her gaze drift to the mirror looking casually across the room as though she's simply watching the crowd.
When her eyes reach my corner, my pulse kicks hard enough that I hear it in my ears. They’re dark brown, almost black in this light. They were the last thing I saw before Carmichael's men tranquilized her: tear-streaked, wild with grief and rage, looking at me like I was the devil himself.
Her gaze lingers on me for a measured beat, long enough to acknowledge that she knows she's being watched. Then she turns her attention back to Maria, but the easy rhythm of their conversation is gone.
Everything about her posture has changed. Her shoulders are drawn tight, her spine held rigid, and her body is angled slightly forward on the stool. One hand rests flat against the bar top, grounding herself, while the other lifts her glass with a slowness that tells me every ounce of her focus is somewhere other than that beer. She's running calculations, marking my position in her peripheral vision, cataloging whatever details the distance and the dim light will give her.
From where she's sitting, with the fixture behind me casting me in silhouette, all she can make out is a shape. She hasn't gotten a clear look at my face yet.
Raven finishes her beer and leaves cash on the bar, then moves through the room with the kind of awareness that most people never develop. Her weight is distributed evenly, her eyes sweeping the space without ever appearing to look at anything in particular. Every step is measured and purposeful. She walkslike someone who has been trained to handle trouble and expects it to find her.
As she nears the door, there's a subtle hitch in her stride that tells me she's still conscious of my presence at her back. Her hand flexes once at her side before she forces it to relax. But that's the only acknowledgment she gives me, and then she's through the door and gone.
I stay where I am and force myself to finish my beer at a relaxed pace. I need to give her enough time to make it back to the safe house, make sure it doesn't look like I'm following her or have any interest in where she went. Maria watches me from behind the bar but doesn't come over.
A few minutes later, I leave cash on the table and head for the exit. Outside, night has settled over Fredericksburg with that particular Hill Country darkness, the kind where the stars burn bright overhead and the air cools down just enough to remind you the day's heat won't last forever. My truck is parked a few spots down the street. Raven is nowhere in sight, already swallowed up by the dark.
Devil's Acre lies west of town, far enough out for privacy but close enough to keep tabs on things when I need to. The ranch sits on land that used to be the heart of my father's empire, land I bought back piece by piece over the last couple of years. Some of it through legitimate channels, some through methods Carmichael taught me that don't show up in any official records.
Bo Hollister's name is gone from the deed, as if he never existed.
Knox's truck is in the driveway when I pull up, and lights are on in the main house, which means he's been waiting for me. My brother has never been particularly good at subtlety.
I find him in the kitchen, nursing a drink and scrolling through his phone. He glances up when I walk in.
"You're out late."
"Had business in town." I grab a beer from the fridge.
Knox sets his phone down and leans back in his chair. My brother is a couple of years younger than me and built like a bare-knuckle brawler, broader through the chest, heavier through the shoulders, with scarred knuckles that tell the story of his years on the rodeo circuit and his current side venture running underground fights. His pale blue eyes study my face with the kind of patience that most people mistake for indifference.
"Everything okay?" he asks.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't it be?"
