I met his eyes, for a second, and held the look as long as I could before it made my heart go sideways and I had to look away.
In that beat, I realized he wasn’t trying to reassure me, or manage me, or tell me what I needed to hear. He was just stating the facts, letting me have them without a filter.
He saw me as part of the plan, not a project.
It landed with a force I hadn’t braced for.
I tightened my grip on Emilio and turned back to the window, the snow now so dense it was hard to tell where the yard ended and the sky began.
I said, “Okay. I’ll help.”
Hooper stood, left the mug on the table, and walked over to me. He set a hand on my shoulder—warm, real, just enough pressure to say he was there if I needed the reminder.
“We’ll win this,” he said, low and steady.
I let the words hang in the air, and didn’t argue.
The kitchen ticked with the cooling of the stove, the silence no longer threatening, but heavy in a different way—the anticipation of something about to change.
Hooper let go of my shoulder and went to check the back door. I bounced Emilio once, twice, and watched the last of the footprints disappear under the falling snow.
For the first time in years, I felt the shape of a future that might actually belong to me.
And it was terrifying.
That afternoon, the kitchen went from holding its breath to packed full in under a minute. One second I was alone, the woodstove ticking loud, the only movement the slow orbit of Emilio’s hand as he gripped a button on my shirt.
Next second, the back door opened, letting in a gust of cold and three men so wide they could’ve been a moving crew hired to relocate the entire house.
Rawley came in first, boots still caked with snow, the alpha energy turned way up for the occasion. He set his thermos on the table with enough force to make my coffee slosh.
Burke followed, already shucking his gloves, a flick of ice in his eyebrows and a grin that didn’t match the tension in his hands.
Macon brought up the rear, face unreadable, but the way he checked the porch once before stepping in told me he was clocking every detail.
Hooper came in right after, no transition from outside to inside—just a shift in temperature, like the world had flicked the thermostat from “murder” to “debate.”
He moved straight to the baby and me, checked both without saying a word, then claimed a spot at the end of the table, folding his arms with the kind of authority that said: this is where things get solved.
The room shrank.
I had Emilio on my lap, his body heat a shield against the edge in the air, but I felt it anyway—the way all four men settled in, each one bending the space around themselves. The woodstove had started to overdo it, making the kitchen even closer, the window sweating at the edges from the difference.
Rawley opened his notepad, clicked a pen, and gave me a look that said, “Ready?”
I nodded, not because I was, but because there was nothing to be gained by saying no.
First came the questions: Who exactly did Eleanor keep on retainer? Which firm, which county, what level of “fix” could she buy with a phone call? Did she have law enforcement in the pocket, or just the kind of Beta muscle you could hire off a political fundraiser mailing list?
I answered. I named names, spelled them out, gave last knowns and next best guesses. Rawley took notes at a speed that made me want to look away, each line an arrow aimed at a weak spot.
Then came the softballs—did she have dirt on anyone local or was it all bluff and bluster? Was there anything about her that could be used for leverage, and if so, would she see it coming from a mile out?
I gave them everything. I told them about the holiday dinners where the staff outnumbered the family, about the way her father handed out ranch land like Monopoly deeds, and how no one ever left the table without a debt or a promise of one. I told them about the fundraiser where she’d outbid the state’sLieutenant Governor for a bronze bull, not because she wanted it, but because it was easier to display a victory than an emotion.
They asked about her capacity for threat, for escalation. Would she get physical or stick to the legal? I said both, but in public she always used proxies, never blood or fingerprints.
I watched Rawley process it, watched the way Hooper’s jaw locked when I mentioned the Petersons’ old family fixer. Burke and Macon exchanged a look that would have been missed by anyone who hadn’t spent ages learning the language of worry expressed only in eyelid twitches and the angle of crossed arms.
