Page 60 of Claimed By The Tracker

"Gideon says the inquiry panel acknowledged the authentication," Tara said. "Preliminary finding: procedural violation. Gabriel Rowe's statement flagged for further review. The competing claim block is stayed pending resolution."

"How long?" Lena asked.

"Forty-eight hours for the formal ruling. Possibly less."

Lena nodded. The gold at her fingertips had settled—not gone, never entirely gone now that she'd stopped hiding it, but quiet. Pulled close to her skin where it belonged. My wolf pressed against the surface of my vision, satisfied. She was ours. The bond confirmed it with every heartbeat.

I watched her run the timeline against everything she was holding: the inquiry behind her. The ruling ahead. Her father rebuilding his next move somewhere in that parking structure.

"Two days," she said. "Maybe less. And then it's done."

"That part of it," I said. "Yes."

She caught the distinction. She always did. "You think there's more."

"I think a man who spent thirty years building one kind of stronghold doesn't stop because one piece gets condemned." My jaw tightened. Gold bled into my vision. "He builds around it."

"That's not comforting either."

"No."

She almost smiled. It cost her. I counted it as a win anyway.

"Take me back to the farmhouse," she said.

Not a question.

"Yes."

I turned toward the vehicle. She fell into step beside me. Not behind. Not in my wake. Beside me. That was the only geometry I'd accept now.

Delaney and Tara followed.

Maddox was driving. He'd pulled the vehicle around to the curb sometime during the confrontation without either of us noticing. That was Maddox—exactly where he was needed without announcing it. Tara took the front passenger seat with her phone and notes. Delaney sat in the back beside Lena.

The good quiet settled over the vehicle.

The kind that comes after something real has been said. I sat in the middle row and let myself feel the bond steady in my chest. Lena's presence. Warm. Constant. At the edge of my awareness.

My phone buzzed. Roan.

Farmhouse secure. Perimeter's clean. All quiet.

I texted back one word. Good.

"Roan?" Lena asked, catching the shift in my attention through the bond before I'd said anything.

"Farmhouse is holding." I put the phone away.

She didn't push. That was new too—learning which things to let a man carry in his own time.

She'd done what she came to do. The contract was unwinding exactly the way Gideon and Tara had built it. Voss was suspended. Gabriel was censured and exposed. By every practical measure, this was a closed file.

It didn't feel closed.

"You don't think it's over," Lena said quietly, reading it off me through the bond before I'd found a way to say it.

"No."