"You think they used the hurricane as cover?" Remy pushed off his bike, that easy charm dropping away to reveal an edge underneath. "Plant more surveillance while everyone was distracted?"
"It's what I would do." I checked my phone—no messages from Artemis. Good. She didn't know we were here. If she did, she'd probably tell us she didn't need protecting, that she'd handled worse than some development company sniffing around her land. She'd be right. That didn't stop the itch under my skin, the one that had been there since I drove away Monday afternoon and left her standing on that porch alone.
We fell into formation without discussing it. Me on point, Silas on my left flank, Remy trailing slightly behind to watch our six. Military pattern. The kind of movement that happens when men have been trained to navigate hostile ground, even if the ground was just Louisiana swampland and the hostiles were corporate surveyors instead of enemy combatants.
"You served?" Silas asked, not looking at me, his eyes sweeping the tree line.
"Marines. Eight years." I stepped over a fallen branch, still damp from the storm. "You?"
"Army. Special operations." Silas's words were clipped, matter-of-fact, like he was reading from a file. A pause, then: "Twelve years."
Remy made a sound behind us, something between a laugh and a snort. "And here I am, the only one without combat training. Just a pretty face and a guitar."
"You grew up in the bayou." I ducked under a low-hanging branch, holding it back for the others. "You know this land better than either of us."
"True." He moved past me, and I caught his scent—honey and whiskey and a rawness underneath that hadn't been there before the storm. Grief, maybe. Old pain brought fresh to the surface. "I know every hunting blind, every fishing spot, every place a man might hide if he didn't want to be found." His voice had gone quiet. "Spent a lot of years not wanting to be found."
We walked in silence for a while, three Alphas moving through land that wasn't ours but felt like it should be. The morning was cool, mist still clinging to the lower areas where the ground stayed wet year-round. Birds startled from branches as we passed. A nutria splashed into a channel and disappeared.
Then Gumbo appeared.
I saw him first—a dark shape in the water, cutting toward us with that prehistoric efficiency that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Nine feet of armored death, and he was heading straight for our position.
"Company." I kept my voice low, my hand moving instinctively toward the knife on my belt before I stopped myself. This wasn't a threat. This was her companion. Her family.
"Oh, fantastic." Remy had gone very still. "My favorite murder log."
Gumbo surfaced ten feet away, those yellow eyes fixed on us with an intelligence that shouldn't exist in a reptile brain. He watched. Assessed. Then he turned and started moving along the bank, parallel to our path.
"He's tracking with us." Silas sounded almost impressed. "Perimeter patrol."
"Or waiting for one of us to fall in so he can eat us." Remy muttered, but he didn't retreat. He held his ground, watching the gator with a mix of terror and grudging respect.
We kept moving, Gumbo pacing us in the water like a scaly escort. The eastern boundary came first—a stretch of land that bordered the old Thibodaux holdings, overgrown and neglected since the family had sold off parcels over the years. I spotted the first camera twenty minutes in.
"There." I pointed to the cypress trunk, to the small black device mounted about eight feet up, angled to cover the approach to her place. "Trail cam. Commercial grade."
Silas was already moving toward it, examining without touching. "Motion-activated. Cellular upload." His jaw tightened. "Been here at least a week. Maybe longer."
"They're watching her." Remy's voice had gone hard, all the charm stripped away. "Tracking her movements." Heat coiled in my chest, dark and dangerous. A growl built in my throat before I could stop it, low and threatening, the kind of sound I hadn't made since?—
Since Claire. Since I'd found those messages on her phone and my body had reacted before my brain caught up. This was different. This wasn't betrayal. This was threat. Someone was watching my?—
Our. Someone was watching our Omega. Recording her. Treating her home like a target zone for reconnaissance.
"Leave it." My voice came out rougher than intended. "We document everything first. Then we tell her. She decides what to do."
Silas nodded, pulling out his phone to photograph the camera. Remy was already scanning the surrounding trees, looking for more.
We found six cameras by noon. Two on the eastern boundary, three along the northern tree line, one near the oldboat launch where Artemis kept her pirogue. All positioned to track movement onto and off her land. All professional grade, expensive, the kind of equipment that cost real money and indicated real intent.
We also found survey stakes. New ones, driven into the soft ground along what would be prime waterfront if someone wanted to develop. Orange flags that hadn't been there a week ago.
"They moved fast." Silas crouched by one of the stakes, reading the numbers stamped into the metal. "Survey company out of Baton Rouge. Probably contracted through a shell company."
"Crescent Holdings." I'd done my research after the first time Artemis mentioned them. "They've been buying up waterfront land all through the parish. Quiet acquisitions, nothing flashy. But there's a pattern. Someone's building toward a bigger play."
"Resort development." Remy had his phone out, scrolling through something. "I heard talk at the bar last month. Big plans for eco-tourism along this stretch. Kayak rentals, luxury cabins, maybe a restaurant." He looked up, his amber eyes gone cold. "Her land sits right in the middle of what they'd need for boat access."
