Page 82 of Claimed on the Ridge

"And the rental plate Morrow flagged this morning? Any matching vehicles in the area?"

The stiffness shifts. He's looking at me differently now—not like a woman he's babysitting, but like someone asking operational questions he hadn't thought to include in the briefing.

"I'll check," he says. "Afternoon report."

He leaves. The door closes behind him and I go back to the notepad. The small victory of watching Bryan recalibrate in real time is petty and satisfying, and I'm not above enjoying it.

Alex hasn't changed who he is. I can see him from the table, hauling the next load across the yard, and the man carrying those logs is the same man who locked me out of a decision about my own safety two nights ago. He hasn't apologized. He hasn't explained. He hasn't done any of the things Gary used to do after—the flowers, the dinner reservations, the extravagant gestures designed to buy silence and call it reconciliation.

What Alex has done is put his keys on the table and his intel in my hands and his brother on my briefing schedule.

Transformation is a Hallmark movie.

Adaptation is a man who made a bad call and is too stubborn to make the same one twice.

That's more convincing.

One thought surfaces about the marriage, brief and clinical. I am still legally Gary Simmons's wife. There is a lawyer to call, paperwork to file, a legal reality to unwind that extends beyond the reach of a dead man's switch and a satellite phone. Not today. Today I'm building the weapon that makes tomorrow possible. The lawyer can wait.

Some lawyer is going to enjoy this case.

Bryan's afternoon report arrives on schedule. He stands in the same spot, delivers the same clipped professionalism, but this time he includes the rental plate information without me asking. No matches in the area. He looks at me when he finishes, and the pause before he turns to go has something in it that wasn't there this morning.

Not warmth. Not yet.

Recognition that the woman at the table isn't wasting his time.

Alex appears behind Bryan as Bryan leaves. The two brothers pass in the doorway without a word, navigating shared space with the practiced choreography of men who've lived together their whole lives.

Alex looks at the notepad, then at me. Pages of my handwriting, flipped and folded back, Morrow's intel woven into diagrams that have been growing since Gary's men showed up. He can see the scope of what I've built.

"The warning shot went out," I say.

His jaw moves. The muscle along the hinge tightens and releases.

"To who?"

I give him the name. He doesn't know the man, but the context registers—another piece of the network I've been mapping while he was stacking wood. He doesn't comment on the choice. He's learning what it looks like when I make tactical decisions without asking permission, and the learning shows in how still he stands instead of crossing the room to look over my shoulder at the notepad.

"Amberly is holding the rest," I say. "Every morning I check in. If I don't, she sends everything."

"Everything."

"Enough to start an IRS inquiry and end every business relationship Gary has in Alaska."

He's quiet for a long moment.

Then:

"You built that today."

"I built the foundation over four years. Today I put a fuse on it."

The look he gives me is the one that makes my body forget we're fighting. The one that says he sees what I am, and the seeing does something to him he can't control. The heat of it reaches me across the kitchen, and I hold the look because I am done being the woman who drops her eyes first.

He drops his. His gaze goes to the floor, then back to me.

"I'm going to rebuild the fire," he says.