Chapter 64: Cleaning Zone
The helicopter touched down on the ranch’s helipad in a whirlwind of dust and noise. Before the rotors had even begun to slow, Beth was out, striding toward the small cluster of Damien’s men who stood near the mangled SUV that had been driven back. They looked edgy, out of their element, their New York tailored suits stained with dust and other, darker substances. Their eyes kept flicking to the horizon, expecting sirens.
Damien emerged behind her, his presence a calming signal to his crew. A tall man with a knotted scar along his jaw—Luca—stepped forward. “Boss. The scene on the highway is contained for now, but we’re on a clock. Local authorities will—”
“The local authorities are having a pancake breakfast fundraiser twenty miles east,” Beth said, cutting him off. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a finality that snapped every man’s attention to her. “And they will continue to do so for the next ninety minutes. Your clock is my clock.” She looked past Luca, her gaze sweeping over the vehicles and the grim cargo within. “My family will handle disposal. You will follow my lead. Is that understood?”
Luca glanced at Damien, who gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
“Yes, ma’am,” Luca said, the title offered with a new wariness.
“Good. Unload the … material. Take everything to the old stock trailer behind the equipment barn. Dove will meet you there.” She turned on her heel, heading for the main house. “Damien, with me.”
He fell into step beside her, the morning sun now hot on their backs. The facade of the grand estate was serene, all white marble and climbing jasmine. It smelled of cut grass and money. The contrast with what they’d just done, with what was in the trailer, was violent.
“You have a system for this,” he stated, not asked.
“We have a ranch,” she replied, her tone pragmatic. “Livestock dies. Predators need to be managed. Trees fall. You deal with the remains.” She led him not into the house, but around the side, past her pristine vineyard, toward a thicker grove of live oaks. “The Montgomerys have been dealing with remains for a long time.”
Dove was already at the equipment barn, her ranch truck idling. She’d changed into worn jeans and boots, her hair tied back. She looked at the approaching men with the same detached efficiency she’d use for assessing a sick heifer. “Trailer’s hitched,” she said to Beth, then nodded to the back of the barn. “Javier and the twins are scrubbing the vans with the enzyme wash. They’ll be stripped and crushed at the yard by ten.”
Beth nodded. “Let’s go.”
Damien watched as his men, under Dove’s direction, transferred the heavy, black-wrapped bundles from the SUV into a beaten-up livestock trailer. The mundanity of it was worse than the violence. This wasn’t a dramatic burial at sea or a chemical melt in a barrel. This was ranch work.
He moved to get into the truck cab with them. Beth placed a hand on his chest. It was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him since the desert ridge.
“You don’t have to come,” she said, her green eyes holding his. It wasn’t a kindness. It was a test.
“I’m coming.”
The drive was slow, the trailer bouncing over rutted tracks that led away from the cultivated parts of the property, into a low, swampy area where the air grew thick and warm. The scent of jasmine was replaced by the fecund smell of damp earth, algae, and decay. Spanish moss hung like tattered ghosts from the cypress trees.
Dove brought the truck to a stop at the edge of a murky pond, its surface still as green glass. “This is it. The gators are used to feeding time. Keeps them from wandering toward the cattle.”
Beth got out, and Damien followed, the mud sucking at his expensive boots. Dove went to the back of the trailer, unlatched the gate. She didn’t flinch.
“The Montgomerys have a knack for taming dangerous things,” Dove said, not looking at Damien as she swung the gate open. Her voice was casual, almost conversational.
Beth walked to the water’s edge. She didn’t call out. She simply stood there, silent and still.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the water near the far bank stirred. A log-like shape detached itself from the mud and slid silently into the deeper water. Then another. Ripples began to converge toward Beth.
Damien felt a primal chill that had nothing to do with the mafia wars or backroom hits. This was older. The first of the alligators reached her, its armored head breaking the surface just feet from where she stood. Its eyes, like obsidian beads, watched her. It didn’t open its jaws. It didn’t hiss. It waited.
Beth gave a slight, almost unnoticeable nod.
Dove, using a long pole, pushed the first bundle from the trailer. It landed in the murky water with a soft, thick splash.
The reaction was instantaneous. The placid water erupted in a churning, thrashing violence. The sound was horrific—a wet, tearing cacophony, the crash of powerful tails, the deep, grating snap of jaws. The water frothed and turned a muddy, sickly red.
Damien’s stomach clenched. He’d ordered executions. He’d seen men die. This was different. This was obliteration. This was the earth itself consuming the evidence with a brutal, ancient hunger.
He looked at Beth. She was watching the feeding, her profile stark against the green gloom. There was no disgust on her face. No pleasure either. It was the same focused expression she wore reviewing a quarterly report. A small, faint smile touched the corner of her lips—not of joy, but of satisfaction. A problem was being solved, efficiently and completely.
In that moment, the last ghost of the girl he’d married—the one who’d flinched at the sight of a black widow, who’d wanted to be a Donna adorned in silk—finally evaporated. The woman before him was something else entirely. A sovereign of this dark, rooted world.
The horror in his veins was real, a cold spike of it. But so was the arousal, a dark, pulling heat low in his gut. The two feelings twisted together, inseparable. She was terrifying. She was magnificent. She was his.
The frenzy in the water subsided as quickly as it had begun. The gators, sated, began to drift away, sinking back beneath the opaque surface. The pond returned to its deceptively peaceful stillness. A few last ripples lapped at the shore, tinged pink.
Dove latched the empty trailer. “That’ll do it. They won’t need feeding for a month.” She wiped her hands on her jeans and climbed back into the truck.
Beth finally turned from the water. She met Damien’s gaze across the muddy clearing. Her eyes were clear, unapologetic. She saw everything in his face—the shock, the dawning understanding, the heat. She acknowledged none of it.
“The ledger is in my study,” she said, her voice cutting through the swamp’s quiet. “Let’s go see what your twenty million bought us.”
She walked back to the truck, leaving him standing there amidst the scent of blood and wet earth, the truth of her, and of them, finally laid bare in the muddy tracks she left behind.