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Lachlan was quiet for a few steps.

“I think sharing blood doesn’t give him the right to decide what I do with the rest of my life.”

The parallel between us was suddenly impossible to miss.

For twenty-five years, I had believed Ciro’s blood connected me to everything ugly about him. Now I knew Papá’s ran through me instead, while Mamá’s Dravik blood carried another history I had barely begun to understand. In the span of one day, the names and bloodlines I had used to define myself had all changed.

Lachlan had discovered something different but strangely similar. The farm boy he had been had carried a criminal inheritance his parents had deliberately hidden from him.

“I think I know exactly what you mean.”

“Figured you might.”

I rested my cheek against the curve of his neck again. “It’s strange learning where you came from after you’ve already become who you are.”

Lachlan was quiet for a moment.

“Blood can tell you where you came from, Mouse. Doesn’t mean anyone gets to decide where you go next.”

We continued in silence for a long time after that.

Lachlan carried me until the terrain eased into gentler slopes. When I told him I wanted to walk again, he put me down without argument.

Once I was steady, I slipped off the backpack and handed it to him. He retrieved both pistols, tucked them back into his waistband, then returned the pack to me.

The rest had helped my ankle, and we continued on foot as the afternoon wore on. Farther down, irrigation systems and sacks of fertilizer beneath a crude shelter indicated that people worked these plots regularly.

The sun had begun turning gold between the trees when metal struck wood somewhere ahead.

Lachlan stopped instantly.

His pistol was in his hand before the sound had finished carrying through the trees, his free hand catching me at the waist and shifting me behind him.

Another strike followed.

Someone was working nearby.

“Stay behind me.”

This time, I had no objection.

Rather than continue in the direction we were headed, Lachlan angled us away from the sound, keeping us beneath the thickest cover we could find. We left the narrow path and moved between the cultivated rows, stepping carefully over roots and irrigation lines while the broad leaves around us helped hide our movement.

The metallic strikes grew fainter behind us. After several minutes, I could no longer hear them or any other sign of whoever was nearby.

Lachlan kept his pistol low but ready as we continued. I had just begun to think we’d managed to pass whoever was working without being noticed when he stopped so abruptly that I nearly walked into him.

A man stood less than fifteen feet ahead of us.

I hadn’t heard a footstep. Not even the rustle of a leaf. He’d come out of a narrow break between the taller plants where the ground dipped enough to conceal him until he was almost directly in front of us.

And he already had a worn gun in his hand, aimed directly at Lachlan. In the same instant, Lachlan brought his pistol up and leveled it at the man.

He looked to be in his fifties, lean and browned by years outside, with faded work trousers and rolled sleeves.

For several seconds, none of us moved.

I stood partly behind Lachlan, close enough to feel the tension running through his body as the two men assessed each other.