Chapter 137: What’s your Nature?
The compound’s west wing library was more Damien’s than his father’s now. The leather-bound legal tomes had been pushed to the back, replaced by ledgers that never saw an accountant and first editions of Dante that he actually read. Beth found him there, standing at a tall window, the Venetian blinds sliced into bars of light across his white shirt. He was motionless, a statue of contained intensity, watching something in the courtyard below.
“Plotting world domination or just admiring the new sports car?” she asked, leaning against the doorframe.
He didn’t startle. A smile touched his profile. “The sports car is a distraction. A shiny one for the associates who think money is the only scorecard.” He turned, the light cutting across the tattoo on his neck. “You hiding from my mother?”
“I’m taking a cognitive breather,” she corrected, walking into the room. The air here was cooler, smelling of old paper and his cologne. “Sophia is… trying. It’s exhausting in its own way. I don’t want to think about reconciliations. Or Polina’s latest tear-stained email. Or Isaak’s silent, seething judgment. And I definitely don’t want to think about work.”
He opened his arms and she walked into them, pressing her cheek against his chest. The steady thump of his heart was a better rhythm than any of the chaos. “What does Bethany Montgomery want to think about?” he murmured into her hair.
She pulled back, a mischievous glint in her green eyes. “Buttercup’s new farrier is a poet. Seriously. He writes sonnets about hoof angles. Dove is threatening to commission an epic.”
He laughed, a real one, the tension leaving his shoulders. “Of course she is.”
They migrated to the deep leather sofa. She kicked off her heels, tucking her feet beneath her. She talked about Dove’s latest ventures—the legal ones. The exotic animal rescue that was somehow turning a profit on alpaca wool, the organic medicinal herb garden that supplied a boutique pharmacy in Austin. The good the ranch produced, the sunlight side of their legacy. It was a deliberate litany of normalcy, a spell she was casting to keep the shadows at bay.
He listened, his hand drawing idle circles on her knee, his gaze soft. He knew what she was doing. He was doing it with her.
After a lull in the conversation, she looked up at him. “Baby, what’s your favorite plant?”
The question seemed to come from nowhere. He blinked. “My favorite plant.”
“Yes. Not flower. Plant.”
He leaned back, thinking. The criminal empire at his fingertips, and she wanted horticulture. “Jade plant,” he said finally. “Tough. Hard to kill. Thrives on neglect, but looks better with a little care.”
She smiled, as if he’d passed a test. “Good answer.”
“Why?” he asked, curiosity flickering. “You planning our landscaping?”
“Something like that.” She shifted, turning to face him fully, her expression turning serious in a way that had nothing to do with territory or threats. “My family… we have a lineage hallway at the ranch. You’ve never seen it. It’s in the old wing, behind the main office.”
He nodded, waiting. He knew the Montgomery legacy was textured, but its private rituals were still foreign to him.
“It’s not like yours,” she continued. “Not portraits with names and monikers. No dates of reign or lists of… acquisitions.” She chose the word carefully. “Our frames are carved wood. Inside, instead of a face, there’s a detailed etching of your favorite plant. And where the name would go, there’s the animal that represents your temperament. Your spirit. My father’s is a live oak—strong, deep roots, provides shelter. His animal is a grey wolf. Observant, loyal to the pack, a provider. My mother’s is a black dahlia. Complex, layered, beautiful, deadly. Her animal is a snow leopard. Solitary, precise, untamable.”
Damien was utterly still, listening. This was a secret language, a softer, stranger mythology than his own.
“Dove’s is a prickly pear cactus. Resilient, useful, protects itself. Her animal is a mustang. Impossible to break. Wild at heart.” Beth’s voice was thick with a love he rarely heard her voice so openly. “Mine is a night-blooming cereus. Shows its beauty only in the dark, on its own terms. My animal is a raven. A strategist. A collector of shiny truths.”
She reached out, her fingers brushing the back of his hand. “I want to add you. Across from me, next to my parents. Your jade plant. For your animal…” She studied him, her gaze seeing all the parts of him—the charm, the violence, the devotion. “A panther. Not just the obvious. Protective. Moves through any environment. Owns the night, but can bask in the sun with its family.”
The air left his lungs. For a man who dealt in overt displays of power—expensive rings, tailored suits, the deference of dangerous men—this was something else entirely. This was inclusion in a sacred, quiet space. It wasn’t about claiming him for the Montgomery ‘business.’ It was about claiming his essence for their family’s intimate history. It was the opposite of the Rossi compound’s cold, marble hall of portraits, where eyes followed you with expectation and judgment.
“Beth,” he said, her name a rough scrape in his throat.
“I know it’s not a sacrament or a blood oath or whatever your family does,” she said, a flicker of her old defensive sarcasm returning. “It’s just plants and animals. But it’s us. It’s who we are to each other, underneath everything.”
He caught her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. He thought of his mother’s realization, of the loneliness Beth had carried. He thought of the ten years they’d lost. This offer was her deepest act of faith. She wasn’t just letting him back into her life; she was carving a space for him in her roots.
“A jade plant and a panther,” he repeated softly, as if tasting the combination. He looked at their joined hands, then back into her sharp, hopeful, terrifyingly vulnerable green eyes. “Yeah. I belong there.”
He pulled her to him, kissing her with a fervor that held decades of regret and a fierce, burgeoning future. When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against hers.
“When do we go?” he asked, his voice low. “I want to see it. I want to stand in that hallway.”
“Soon,” she promised, a real, unguarded smile spreading across her face. “We’ll go home soon.”
Outside the library, the compound hummed with its usual latent threat. But in that room, for that moment, the only legacy that mattered was taking root, quiet and green and alive, waiting for its place on the wall.