Chapter 26: Collateral Planning
The jet’s cabin was a silent, pressurized vault. Beth stared out the window at the quilt of clouds below, her reflection a pale ghost over the endless white.The hum of the engines was supposed to be soothing. It felt like a scream held in check.Damien was across from her, tapping something into a secured tablet. He’d changed into black jeans and a charcoal sweater that did nothing to soften him. He looked relaxed, as if embarking on a weekend trip, not a siege of her ancestral home.
The question had been burning a hole in her gut since they’d left his apartment.
She turned from the window.“Jackson Mac.”
Damien didn’t look up. “What about him?”
“He’s the Ranch’s Chief of Security.I gave him your number.Thirteen years ago. A back-channel, just in case.” Her voice was cool, detached. “You haven’t spoken to him since the divorce. I’d know.”
He set the tablet down slowly, finally meeting her eyes.“But today,” she continued, leaning forward, the leather groaning beneath her. “He calls you first.Before me.About a watcher on my family’s land. How?” She let the word hang.“You didn’t know about the Ranch until this morning. You said so.So how did you know Vega was a problem? And how the hell do you know Jackson well enough for him to bypass me?”
Damien held her gaze, his expression unreadable. Then he sighed, a faint, weary sound. He reached for the crystal decanter between them, poured two fingers of amber whiskey, and slid the glass toward her.“I didn’t lie. I didn’t know the specifics.The gators, the hogs… the ledger. That was yours to tell.” He took a sip of his own drink.“But Beth, come on. You vanished after the Divorce .Poof. One day you’re there, the next you’re gone.No trace.Even for me, that was… impressive. And terrifying.”
She didn’t touch the glass.“Get to the point.”
“I found you. It took me forty-seven days.” He said it quietly, like a confession. “You were in a diner outside Lubbock, wearing a baseball cap and drinking awful coffee.You looked… shattered.And fierce. You still do.” He swirled the whiskey. “I watched you get into a truck with Texas plates.I traced it.Montgomery Ranch. A corporate entity so layered it would make a Russian oligarch dizzy.So, I dug.And I hit a wall. A professional, fortified wall.”
A cold knot formed in Beth’s stomach. “Jackson.”
“I didn’t know his name, not then.But I made contact.Let’s say… I pinged the firewall. To see who was guarding it.” A faint, humorless smile touched his lips. “He pinged back.Hard.We had a conversation.Not pleasant. He told me if I ever came within a hundred miles of you again, parts of me would end up in different area codes.”
Beth remembered Jackson’s fury during the divorce.His quiet, simmering protectiveness. “He works for me.”
“He works for your family,” Damien corrected. “And his first loyalty was to your safety, which, at the time, meant keeping you away from me. We reached an understanding.”
“What understanding?”
“That I’d stay away.For real. No more calls, no more turning up at your events, no more sending flowers you threw in the incinerator.” He looked out the window, his jaw tight. “In return, he’d give me a heads-up.Just one.If you were ever in real, physical danger.Not business rivals. Not bad press.The kind of danger the Ranch was built to handle.”
The pieces slammed together. “The watcher.”
“The watcher,” he confirmed, looking back at her. “Jackson’s call today wasn’t a social call.It was the heads-up. He saw a threat he couldn’t neutralize immediately because the source was unclear. He activated the protocol.”
Beth stood up, too restless to sit.She paced the narrow aisle of the cabin. “So for years, you’ve had… what?A silent alarm on my life?”
“A fail-safe,” he said. “Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“I had every right!” The words cracked out, sharp and final, his controlled calm snapping.He stood, facing her in the confined space.“You left. Fine.You hated me.Understood. But you were the love of my goddamn life, Beth.You think I could just switch that off? Let you walk into the dark not knowing what was out there? Even after you told me today, I still don’t think you fully know what’s out there.But I do.”
They were inches apart. She could see the green fire in his eyes, the raw, unguarded obsession. It should have felt like a violation.It felt like a dam breaking.“And Enrique Vega?” she pressed, her voice lower.
“A rising power.Ambitious.Messy. He started making noises about expanding into ‘legacy enterprises’ in the South. Made some pointed inquiries about old-money families with… unique reputations.The Montgomerys were on a short list.Jackson flagged it. I looked into Vega.He’s the kind of ambitious that gets people killed. The kind that sees a ledger not as a risk, but as a weapon.” He reached out, his hand hovering near her arm, not quite touching. “So when Jackson called about the watcher, and Vega’s name was in the mix, I knew.The fail-safe triggered. My job was to get to you.”
His job.His self-appointed, irrevocable duty.She didn’t move away. The humming jet felt like the only thing holding them aloft.“All this time. You were watching the watchmen.”
“Someone had to,” he murmured.
The pilot’s voice came softly over the intercom, announcing the initial descent into a private airfield outside Amarillo.Twenty minutes.
Beth finally picked up the whiskey glass and drained it. The heat bloomed in her chest, cutting through the chill of revelation. “Dove is going to hate this.”
“Dove,” Damien said, reclaiming his seat, a hint of his old smirk returning.“The sister who never leaves. The one who runs the workshop. I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
“She’ll have a shotgun.”
“I’m used to it.”
The jet tilted, beginning its drop. Beth sank back into her seat, watching the flat, brown expanse of Texas rise up to meet them. The Ranch was a thirty-minute drive from here.Her past, her legacy, its secrets freshly unearthed. And beside her, the man who was both her greatest vulnerability and, she was beginning to understand, her most ruthless protector. He’d built a parallel life around the margins of hers, a shadow alliance with her own family, all without her ever knowing.It was infuriating. It was the most terrifying and real thing she’d felt in years.
The wheels touched down with a screech and a jolt.As they taxied, she looked at him.“When we get there. You let me talk. You stand there and look… less like a mafia boss.”
“How should I look?”
“Like you’re sorry.”
He grinned, all teeth. “But I’m not.I’m here.”
The plane came to a stop. The cabin door hissed, releasing the dry Texas heat.Beth stood, smoothing her hands over her jeans. She could already see the dust rising from the gravel road where a single, dusty black SUV waited.
Behind the wheel, she knew, would be Dove. Her sister would be wearing her standard uniform of worn jeans, boots, and a razor-sharp expression.Beth stepped to the open doorway, the wind whipping her hair. She felt Damien move behind her, a solid, undeniable presence at her back.
She took a breath, the air tasting of dust and diesel and home.
Then she walked down the steps, toward the waiting car, and the sister who was about to meet the man who’d been keeping secrets for them both.