Page 108 of Taken Away

She stepped back. Not because he scared her. Because she had hurt him, and she knew it.

She opened the office door.

Behind her, Bennett spoke again, his voice rougher this time.

“You want to chase Mercer? Fine. Give it to Burke. But don’t confuse a bad contract with a killer.”

Aubrey looked back.

His hands were braced on the desk now, head bowed between his shoulders, the gold band on his left hand catching the morning light.

The sight stole some of the fight from her.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she said quietly.

He didn’t look up.

“No,” he said. “You’re trying to survive.”

The words hit too close.

Survival she understood. Trust? Not nearly as well.

Aubrey stepped out and closed the door behind her.

On the mezzanine, the winery had begun to wake beneath her. Voices rose from the tasting room. A forklift beeped. Somewhere below, Savannah laughed at something Chloe said, bright and normal and impossibly distant.

Walter stood near the railing, a ledger tucked beneath one arm as he watched the production floor.

He turned when Aubrey emerged.

His eyes moved briefly to Bennett’s closed office door. Then back to her.

“Everything all right, child?”

Aubrey looked down at the Mercer contract in her hands.

Her throat felt tight, her pulse a frantic, unhelpful drum.

“No,” she said.

Walter’s expression softened with almost perfect concern.

"No," he said gently. "Not much is these days."

What she didn’t say—what she refused to say—was that the numbers were finally starting to make sense.

It was the people who didn’t.

TWENTY-SIX

Blackwood Cattle Operation

Red Stephens

The lower pasture sat nearly three miles from the winery, tucked into a broad valley where the mountains opened into rolling fields of summer grass and black fencing.

Deputy Luke Hale spotted Red Stephens before he reached the gate.