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“No.” Her breath trembles once before she takes another. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Please don’t insult me after a man tried to shove us into a barrier.” She pulls her chin from my hand, but doesn’t move away. “How does a vineyard owner learn to handle an attack like that?”

“Years of security threats teach a person to respond without panic.”

“You did far more than stay calm. You knew where he would move before he moved, and you directed Drew as if both of you had practiced it.”

Drew and Benitez stand outside the vehicle, giving us the illusion of privacy while they check the tires. I look at Cassie, who has spent six days discovering that every answer around Connor hides another question. I’ve become another locked door in front of her.

“There are parts of my life you don’t understand,” I tell her.

“I figured that out when a date from twelve years ago made you look like you’d seen a ghost.” Her voice softens, which makes the accusation harder to dismiss. “Do you ever intend to explain any of it?”

“I’ll tell you what you need to know when doing so won’t place you in greater danger,” I tell her.

Her eyebrows pull together. “You keep deciding what I need.”

“Because the full truth has consequences you haven’t seen.” I hold her eyes, refusing to soften the warning.

She turns toward the windshield and watches the empty fruit stand. “That sounds like a warning.”

“It is.” I reach across the console and take her hand. She looks down at our joined fingers but doesn’t pull away. “It’s also an attempt to protect you.”

“I know.” Her voice loses some of its anger as she looks at me again. “But that doesn’t make it fair.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I admit, keeping my hand around hers.

Drew opens my door before either of us can continue. “No damage beyond a scrape on the mirror. Benitez has enough of the vehicle to compare it with the vineyard footage.” His phone vibrates in his hand, and his expression changes as he reads the message. “We have a perimeter breach.”

I step out. “Where?”

“Wooded boundary north of the equipment barn. A camera went down seven minutes after we left Ember Ridge.” He turns the screen toward me. “The patrol found him between the damaged fence and the fuel storage area. He ran when they challenged him and dropped the container before they caught him near the public boundary.”

“What was in it?”

“Accelerant. They held him until the deputies arrived, and he’s in police custody now.”

The news should satisfy me, but it doesn’t. I wish the patrol had brought him to me before they called the police. Ten minutes alone with him in the equipment barn would have been enough to beat the truth out of him. The deputies will follow procedure and ask careful questions, but if they’d left him with me, I would already know who sent him.

My anger intensifies when I consider how close he came. My father and Leo built the equipment barn before our first commercial harvest, and the surrounding buildings contain fuel, tractors, and enough dry material to feed a fire. Flames could have crossed the lower vines before the crews contained them, with workers still spread throughout those rows.

“Lock every gate and clear the barn,” I tell Drew. “Nobody enters the fuel area until the fire department and your team inspect it. Put officers along the full northern boundary, not only the damaged section.”

Drew relays the orders while I call Leo. Cassie gets out of the SUV and stands beside me, her face pale from the attack but her attention fixed on my words. I tell Leo to move the crews from the lower blocks and account for every employee. He doesn’t ask whether the threat is real. He begins issuing instructions before our call ends.

“The card transaction pulled us away,” Cassie says. “I don’t think this was about Connor…or me. They wanted you and Drew off the property.”

“That was the plan, and they came too close to succeeding.” I look toward the foothills where Ember Ridge lies beyond our view. Someone cut through my fence, turned off a camera, and brought accelerant onto the land my parents spent their lives building. They’ve threatened Sofia, Leo, Mila, and every person working the harvest because they believe my past gives them the right to destroy everything my family built.

“I need to get to the bookstore,” Cassie says. “If the gas station was meant to distract us, the break-in and the donated cartons may be part of it too.”

“Birdie is inside with Harris and Cole. You’re coming back to the vineyard until Drew confirms the grounds are secure.”

“Andrei, Connor left that clue for me.”

“And whoever planned today expected us to divide our security. I won’t pull another officer from the estate while an intruder has just tried to get near the fuel tanks.”