Page 107 of Travis
“How long?” Hunter asked.
“Weeks. Probably less.” Pratt had been contacting me every day, wanting updates. He was getting pressure from higher ups. “They consider him a threat to law enforcement.”
All eyes drifted to Lachlan, since he was officially law enforcement.
He shrugged. “I’m not here as the sheriff of Garnet Bend. I’m here as a man who has spent years watching what trafficking does to communities and families. I’ve seen kids pulled out of situations that I can’t talk about without wanting to put my fist through a wall.”
He looked at Travis. “What you’ve been doing is illegal. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. You’ve operated outside every boundary that exists, and if the FBI figures out who you are, I can’t protect you from that.”
The room was very still.
“But I’m also not going to sit in this chair and tell you that stopping Kindt isn’t worth the risk. Because I’ve been on the other side. I’ve been the one who finds the kids too late, and I’ve stood in rooms where people talked about jurisdictions and warrants while victims disappeared into the system.” He paused. “So I’m here. Take that for what it is.”
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Hunter nodded once, and the conversation moved forward, and just like that, the full weight of what everyone was choosing settled into the room and stayed.
They were all risking something. If this went sideways, they could go to prison. Or worse.
They kept working. Hunter started outlining reconnaissance parameters. Travis and Lucas discussed satellite options. Daniel had questions about the property’s access road, sight lines, terrain. Coop pulled up topographic data on a tablet and started marking approach vectors.
I watched them fall into it, the rhythm of men who had done this kind of work before multiple times. They built on each other’s observations without ego, deferred to expertise without ceremony, and moved through the tactical questions with a practiced efficiency that came from years of shared operations.
A team.
No, more than a team. Afamily.
Travis was in the center of it. Not performing, not hiding, not managing how much of himself he let show. He was working with men he trusted and now knew the truth, and the difference between this and every phone call I’d overheard was visible in his whole body.
His shoulders were lower. His voice was easier. The rigid control he maintained when he was operating alone had loosened into something collaborative.
“Incoming vehicle on the access road,” Maude announced from the ceiling speakers. “Identified as Lark Monroe.”
“Lark’s here for the kittens,” I told the room. “They need somewhere to stay while all of this is happening.”
Beckett looked up from the reconnaissance discussion. “Kittens? First the Christmas puppies, then finding out you’re Batman, and now kittens?”
“The kittens were imposed on me. I had very little say in the matter.”
Coop leaned back in his chair. “That’s what you said about the puppies.”
“It was true then, too.” He looked at me. “You good to handle it?”
“I’ve got it.” I was already standing. The tactical discussion didn’t need me for this part, and honestly, a few minutes out of the testosterone pressure cooker sounded like exactly what my nervous system was asking for.
Lark was already at the front door when I opened it, carrier in one hand and a canvas bag in the other. She hugged me immediately, and it didn’t bother me. No preamble, no awkwardness, just arms around me and a squeeze that said everything a greeting was supposed to say.
“I brought food,” she said, holding up the bag. “Sandwiches, fruit, some of those brownies from Deja Brew. You’ve got a small army down there, and I guarantee none of them thought to eat.”
We’d told her what was happening when we asked her to come get the kittens, so she knew the truth. Honestly, she hadn’t seemed very surprised. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.” She set the bag on the kitchen counter and looked around. “Where are the babies?”
We found the kittens in stages. The gray one was asleep on the chair it had claimed from the first day. The black one was wedged behind the couch cushions in a position that defied anatomy. The white one took the longest. It had gotten into the pantry somehow and was sitting on a shelf between cans of tomato sauce, grooming itself with absolute indifference to everything, as usual.
Lark gathered them into the carrier with practiced hands, murmuring to each one while she did so.
“They look great,” she said. “Thank you for taking care of them. How are you hanging in there with all this?”
“I’m tired. And nervous. And trying very hard not to think about everything that could go wrong.”
