Chapter 62: Habitat
The air in the converted stable-turned-arachnarium was still and thick, smelling of peat moss and warm earth. It was a world away from the marble and glass of the main house, a humid, silent chapel. Beth slid the latch on the first large terrarium, the glass fogging with the shift in temperature.
Inside, a Chilean rose-haired tarantula named Persephone shifted her hefty body on a bed of mulch. She was the size of Beth’s palm, a soft, russet-furred creature with deliberate, graceful movements. Beth extended her hand, palm down, and waited.Persephone ambled forward, her eight legs moving with a slow, tectonic patience. She tested the air with her pedipalps, then stepped onto Beth’s skin. The weight was substantial, a grounding presence. The tiny hairs on her legs tickled, a sensation Beth found comforting, not eerie.She brought her hand up, watching the spider settle, utterly calm.
“You’re the only one she does that for, you know.”
Beth didn’t jump. Dove’s voice, laced with her dry Texas drawl, came from the doorway. She leaned against the frame, arms crossed, giving the terrarium a wide berth. “I swear that thing hisses at me.”
“She doesn’t hiss.She stridulates. It’s a defensive sound.” Beth kept her eyes on Persephone, who was now grooming one of her front legs.“And she’s not a ‘thing.’ She’s a she. And she’s polite.”
“Polite,” Dove snorted, edging a little further into the room but staying well back.“That’s a word for it. I’ve seen her flick urticating hairs at Carlos.He was itching for a week.”
“Carlos stomped. She’s sensitive to vibrations.You have to be still.” Beth finally looked at her sister. Dove was in her usual work clothes—worn jeans, a faded plaid shirt, boots coated in a fine layer of dust. She looked of the earth, solid and real, a stark contrast to Beth’s linen trousers and silk camisole.Two halves of the same whole, shaped by different pressures. “What’s up?”
“You’ve been in here for an hour. Either you’re contemplating a career in exotic pet trade, or you’re hiding.” Dove nodded toward the spider. “From him, or from me?”
“From myself, mostly.” Beth gently guided Persephone back onto her log before closing the terrarium.She wiped her hands on a towel.“We talked. About the… family business. On both sides.”
“His side being the ‘whack-a-mole’ business, ours being the ‘make-the-mole-disappear-before-the-game-starts’ business.” Dove pushed off the doorframe and walked over to a workbench, hopping up to sit on it.“Let me guess.He’s offering you a crown. A scary, blood-red, Italian-made crown.”
“Something like that.” Beth leaned against the opposite bench, the humid air clinging to her skin.“He used the word.‘Donna.’ Not as a suggestion. As a fact.”
A low whistle escaped Dove.“Well, shit.That’s not a flirtation. That’s a manifesto.” She studied her sister.“And you’re not running for the hills. You’re in here getting life advice from the eight-legged yogis.”
“They’re very wise.They wait.They assess.They only strike when necessary.” Beth’s voice was soft. “Dad’s mantle… you said you need me. That our language of violence comes naturally to me.”
Dove’s expression sobered.“It does.You think in endings, Beth. In final solutions. I think in processes, in logistics—how to get from point A to point B without leaving a mess.You… you just see point B. The end of the problem. It’s a gift. A dark one, but a gift.” She picked at a splinter in the wood.“When Dad was alive, he was the strategist. I was the… apprentice groundskeeper. You were the one he’d take to the edge of the property late at night.I never knew what you talked about.But you came back different. Quieter.”
Beth remembered those walks.The cold barrel of a shotgun pressed into her hands, the weight unfamiliar. Her father’s calm, low voice explaining not just how, but why. The morality of a clean end versus a messy, drawn-out suffering.The Montgomery Code. It had felt less like instruction and more like recognition, as if he were confirming something already coiled inside her.
“I hated it,” Beth confessed, the words sharp in the quiet room.“And I loved the clarity of it. The simplicity.”
“Yeah.” Dove nodded.“That’s the trap.So, what’s the move? You gonna put on Damien’s crown and pick up Dad’s shotgun? That’s a hell of a wardrobe.”
The casual, dark humor was pure Dove. Beth felt a tight smile touch her lips.“Vega first.That’s the priority.We break his operation. We do it clean, using my plan, Damien’s muscle, and Montgomery logistics.”
“Okay. And after?”
“After…” Beth looked at the rows of terrariums, at the cryptic, beautiful creatures within. They were predators, yes, but also deeply vulnerable creatures who just wanted a safe burrow, a quiet meal.“After, we see.Maybe the crown fits. Maybe it’s too heavy.But I’m not choosing between his legacy and ours. I’m not choosing between being a Rossi or being a Montgomery.” She met Dove’s sharp green eyes, identical to her own.“I’m choosing to be both.On my terms. If that means I have to redefine what a Donna is, or what a Montgomery fixer is, then I’ll redefine it.”
Dove was silent for a long moment, her gaze appraising. Then she swung her legs down from the bench.“Well, okay then. In that case, we’ve got work to do. Vega’s people just moved a shipment of ‘agricultural supplies’ through a port we have eyes on. Your blueprint is solid, but the timing’s tighter than we thought.”
The shift from existential to operational was abrupt and comforting.This was familiar ground. “How tight?”
“We have a seventy-two-hour window starting tomorrow at oh-six-hundred. Damien’s guys are synced and green.Our routes are locked. The only variable left is you giving the final go.” Dove paused.“And maybe not wearing silk to a desert meet. Just a thought.”
Beth looked down at her camisole and laughed, a real, unguarded sound that felt strange in the quiet arachnarium.“Noted. I’ll accessorize with Kevlar.”
“Smart.” Dove walked toward the door, then stopped. She didn’t look back at the terrariums. “Hey, Beth?”
“Yeah?”
“For what it’s worth… Dad would be proud.Not of the violence.Of the ownership. He always said the hardest thing to control was your own nature.” With that, she disappeared into the brighter light of the afternoon.
Beth stood alone in the humid stillness. She looked at Persephone, who had retreated into her cork bark hide, a lesson in knowing when to be seen and when to vanish. She felt the two threads of her life—the one woven from silk and boardrooms, and the one spun from barbed wire and desert blood—pulling taut, beginning to twist together into a single, formidable strand.
She turned off the heat lamp, plunging the room into a softer, cooler gloom. The decision wasn’t made; it was being lived. And the first step started at oh-six-hundred.