Page 110 of Branded

Good question. How long will it take for us to deal with our neighbors once and for all?

“However long it takes. Keep them safe, Caroline. And keep this quiet. I don’t want anyone knowing we moved them.”

“Understood.” The call ends without a goodbye. I should be offended, but that’s Caroline.

I sit at my desk and pull out the files on Marshalls’ operation. Try to see angles, options, ways to respond that don’t end with more bloodshed.

But every scenario I run ends the same way: escalation. More conflict. More blood.

Marshall has made his move. Now we have to respond. The question is how much we’re willing to risk to win.

A knock on the door.

“It’s me.” Lennox’s voice, and my worry settles.

“Come in.”

She enters, still in riding clothes, her hair windblown, cheeks flushed from the ride. Beautiful and real and utterly unaware of the storm building around us.

“Everything okay?” she asks, reading my expression. “You look tense.”

“Just ranch business. Nothing urgent.” The lie comes easily. Too easily. “How was the ride?”

“Good. Duchess missed me. Took her a mile before she stopped trying to test boundaries.” Lennox moves closer, studies my face. “What happened while I was gone? And don’t say nothing. I can tell something’s wrong.”

I should tell her, I argue with myself. She has a right to know the ranch is under threat, that we’ve found the leak, that the Marshalls are using families as weapons.

But I’ve just got her back from Montana. Dumping this on her now feels like breaking a promise I made to be better.

“We found the leak,” I finally say, honesty winning out. “One of the newer hands—Adam. Marshall is threatening his family, forcing him to give them information about the raid.”

“What happened to him?”

“Caroline has the sister and mother on their way to Austin; Adam’s on his way there, and until we can resolve this, that’s where he’ll stay.” I stand and move to the window. “It’s handled.”

“Is it? Because you look like there’s more to it.”

“Marshall made this escalate; we have to respond.”

“How?”

I turn to face her. “I don’t know yet. But they’ve gone from disputing the property line to cattle rustling to blackmailing my ranch hand in little over a month. Something needs to be done.”

“Talk me through it. I might not have any ideas, but at least you can sort it out,” she says as she sits in the chair.

“Please, Lennox. We’ve just started making our relationship mean something. Let me keep you out of the ugliness for as long as I can.”

She studies me for a long moment, and I see the calculations happening behind her eyes. Trust versus self-preservation. Partnership versus protection.

“Okay,” she finally says. “But if this gets worse, if the danger escalates, you tell me. You don’t hide things because you think I can’t handle them. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She stands and moves closer, her hand finding mine. “We’re supposed to be partners now. That means facing things together. Even the ugly things.”

“I know. I’m just, I’m trying to give you space to breathe before reality crashes back in.”

“I don’t need space. God, I shot a man for this family, Sebastian. As far as I know he’s dead, so can you stop trying to shield me from reality? I may have murdered someone, and that alone should terrify me, or I should at least feel something, but I don’t. Because I did it to save myself. I don’t scare easily, Sebastian Drake.”