The engine started with a quiet hum. The SUV backed slowly down the gravel drive, then turned toward the highway, moving at the same deliberate pace it had arrived with.
I stood in the yard and watched it go, not moving until it had disappeared around the bend in the road. Only when it was out of sight did I turn back toward the farmhouse, where Jasper was visible at the kitchen window—one hand pressed to the glass, eyes on the retreating vehicle, face set in lines I couldn’t quite read from this distance.
Whatever came next—whatever Gerald brought with him when he returned—we would face it together. Not as a problem to be solved or a situation to be managed, but as people who had chosen each other, who had built something worth protecting.
Chapter Nine
~ Jasper ~
The porch steps felt solid beneath my feet—real in a way I hadn’t expected—as I settled into the space Decker had cleared for me next to him.
Dinner had been quiet, everyone careful around the edges, nobody wanting to be the one to mention the black SUV that had backed down the driveway four hours earlier or the man who’d stepped out of it with the certainty of someone who believed I belonged to him.
But we were here now, the six of us scattered across the porch in the cooling evening, Rawley leaning against the railing with his back to the yard, Burke sprawled in one of the chairs with his boots up on the porch rail, Macon occupying a corner with his arms crossed, Jojo curled against Rawley’s side with his hand on Rawley’s chest, and Decker close enough that our shoulders nearly touched.
No one had said we were meeting. No one had used the word “planning.” We’d just all ended up here as the dishes dried in the rack, the gravity of the day pulling us into the same physical space.
“So,” Rawley said, the single syllable landing with enough weight to make it clear what we were doing. “Gerald Hughs. What are we looking at?”
I followed the first few exchanges—Burke explaining how he’d checked the property’s security cameras, Rawley asking about the road from town, Macon outlining sight lines and approaches—but then they slipped into shorthand I didn’t have the key for.
“Jensen would’ve picked up the car at the airport,” Burke said, gesturing with his beer bottle. “Which means the usual channels are running.”
“Which means we’ve got twelve hours, maybe less,” Rawley said. “If they’re bringing in the Calhoun crew again—“
“Not Calhoun,” Macon cut in. “They’re still in Yemen.”
I looked from face to face, trying to track who was who and what they were talking about. Rawley was nodding, Macon had gone quiet again, Burke was making a face like he’d just tasted something sour.
“The Mossad boys, then,” Rawley said. “Which means we need eyes on the east fence line and—“
“No,” Decker cut in. “Not Mossad. They’re too careful about jurisdiction for something like this.”
The conversation kept moving—names without context, references that landed with a grunt or a nod from the others and nothing from me. I sat with my hands loose in my lap, trying not to look like I was completely lost, which I was.
Then Burke snorted and said, “I know who to call,” and everything changed.
Rawley rolled his eyes hard enough to be visible in the low light, Macon produced a single low grunt, and Decker just shook his head once. I looked at each of them in turn and had no idea what just happened.
I leaned into Decker’s shoulder, keeping my voice low. “What’s he talking about?”
Decker didn’t soften it or try to make it sound less alarming than it was. “He wants to call in the Grim Reaper.”
I stared at him. That did not help.
“The Grim Reaper?” I repeated, the words coming out with more breath than voice. “That’s an actual person?”
Burke leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, the kind of grin spreading across his face that made something in my stomach drop. “My brother,” he said, the statement landing with a heavy weight. “And he is exactly what we need.”
“No,” Rawley said, the single syllable carrying enough force to cut through Burke’s enthusiasm. “We haven’t hit scorched earth yet. There are steps between ‘problem’ and ‘nuclear option.’”
Burke shrugged, the movement carrying a confidence I couldn’t quite parse. “It could be fun,” he said, the casual statement landing like a brick.
I sat very still, trying to follow the conversation that was happening above my head.
Rawley went quiet for a moment, jaw working. Something passed between him and Burke—some communication that didn’t require words—and then Rawley was nodding, the movement tight but definitive.
“But if bodies start dropping,” he said, looking directly at Burke, “you’re the one burying them. Understood?”
