Page 8 of Raven's Mark
"Because you've got that look. The one you get when you're turning something over in your head and don't want anyone to know about it." He drums his fingers against the counter. "Beckett's coming by tomorrow. We need to talk about security protocols. There's been more activity on the southern properties lately, trucks moving through at night and using the old routes Dad had mapped out."
I take a long pull from the bottle, letting the cold settle me. "The cartel's rebuilding."
"That's what it looks like." Knox's expression darkens. "Different faces, same operation. Someone's using Hill Country ranches again to move weapons north, and they're probably paying off or threatening landowners to make it happen. The same playbook Dad wrote." He meets my eyes. "Tom Pritchard's death wasn't an accident."
"I know."
"Which means we need to be smart about this. We're out here every day, living on this land, working it. Anyone who looks closely enough is going to figure out that you've been buying back these properties piece by piece. And when they do, all they're going to see is the Hollister name sitting on prime real estate for moving product, a ranch that used to be the beatingheart of Dad's entire operation." He pauses, letting that sink in. "The deal you made with Carmichael to stay out of prison for killing the old man won't mean a thing if the cartel decides we're either useful or in the way."
Knox believes my work with Shadowland was the price I paid to avoid a death sentence for putting a bullet in our father. He has no idea that the real deal had nothing to do with saving my own skin. It was about the girl I put on that plane and the promise I made to a dying man.
"I can handle it."
"Can you?" Knox studies me for a long moment. "Because something's different about you tonight. Something's got you wound up in a way I haven't seen in a while." He stops himself and shakes his head. "Never mind. Just remember that Beckett and I have your back. Whatever trouble is heading our way, you don't have to face it by yourself."
He pushes back from the counter and heads for the door, then pauses with his hand on the frame. "Beckett will be here mid-morning. We'll go over the security setup and figure out how to keep the cartel from treating us like an easy mark." He glances back at me. "Whatever's got you like this tonight, Jesse, don't let it make you careless."
He's gone before I can respond, and I'm standing alone in a kitchen that's soaked in old memories. Through the window, I can see the barn, or rather the place where the barn used to stand. The original was where Bo conducted his negotiations, where men came to make deals or beg for mercy or bleed out on the concrete when they chose wrong.
I burned that barn to the ground and built a new one that doesn't carry the weight of what happened inside those walls.
But some ghosts don't need a building to live in.
Knox doesn't know what happened that night beyond the broad strokes. He knows I killed Bo, knows I disappeared intoCarmichael's world afterward. But the rest of it, Raven, the plane, the decade of guilt that followed, that's mine to carry and no one else's.
He has no idea what it did to me. And I can't tell him. I can't tell anyone.
My phone buzzes with a text from Carmichael:
Have you seen her? She's using Sarah Davis as an alias.
I type back:
She was at Maria's. Getting her bearings. Red hair. Copy on the alias.
Three dots appear, then vanish, then appear again.
Keep your distance but keep her breathing. Don't let her recognize you until you're ready for that conversation.
Helpful.
Another message follows almost immediately:
Once she recognizes you, remember she's armed and she's had ten years to imagine putting a bullet in you. Don't give her the opportunity until you're prepared to deal with it.
I come very close to throwing the phone across the room. Instead, I set it down on the counter with more care than it deserves and walk outside.
The night air is cool and carries the scent of cedar and good Texas earth. Stars blanket the sky overhead, thick and bright theway they only get this far from city light. This is my land now, my ranch, my responsibility. And as of tonight, that includes the woman who just rolled into town with dyed red hair and a decade of hatred with my name written all over it.
I stand in the dark and let the quiet settle around me. Somewhere in town, a short walk from Maria's Bar, Raven is settling into Carmichael's safe house. She thinks she's here to investigate, to dig into Tom Pritchard's death and whatever the cartel is rebuilding in the Hill Country. But she's not the hunter in this situation. She's the one being hunted, and she probably doesn’t realize it yet.
If she starts asking questions about the wrong people, if she stumbles into the cartel's rebuilt pipeline before she understands what she's walking into, she'll be a target before she has a chance to protect herself. And I'll be right where I've always been, keeping the promise I made, standing between her and the next bullet.
The next time we cross paths, she'll get a clear look at my face. And the moment she does, I'll have maybe thirty seconds to convince her not to pull whatever weapon she's carrying before her rage finds its mark.
3
RAVEN
