Lane finally straightens from where he’s been leaning, pushing off the wall with a quiet kind of readiness that says he’s in whether he says it out loud or not.
“Alright,” he says. “We tighten the perimeter. Rework the list. Start tracking names.”
Wade nods. “I’ll get the guys moving on it.”
Luke glances back at the house again. “What about the build?”
I look at it too.
At everything it was supposed to be, simple, new, mine, before any of this got tangled up in it.
“Finish it,” I say. “But nobody works alone. Not anymore.”
Wade gives me a short look. “You’re pushing this hard.”
“Yeah,” I say.
Because I don’t have the luxury of easing into this, not after last night, not after that note.
Not after the way Riley looked at me last night to keep her safe.
This isn’t just a problem anymore, it’s a clock I can feel ticking.
And I can feel it ticking whether anyone else hears it yet or not.
“So we move,” Lane says.
“Yeah,” I answer, already stepping off the porch.
We move.
Wade watches me a second longer than the rest.
Not suspicious or unsure, just measuring.
“You’re different,” he says finally.
I don’t stop walking, but I feel it land anyway.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Luke cuts in from behind us, stepping down off the porch with a quiet thud. “You’ve always been intense, but this—” he gestures vaguely toward the land, the house, all of it, “this is something else.”
Lane doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. The look he gives me is enough.
He sees it.
I slow just enough to turn back toward them, letting the moment settle instead of brushing it off.
“Something changed,” Wade says.
And for a second, I consider giving them the easy version.
The one that keeps everything clean and contained, doesn’t involve Riley. Doesn’t involve the fact that the second that note showed up, this stopped being about land and money and old dirt and turned into something a hell of a lot more personal.
But that’s not how this works.
Not with them.
